Unlimited Vacation Time: Pro or Con?
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Does your job offer “unlimited vacation time”? How much do you actually take? Have you ever negotiated or advocated for a more limited (but explicit) PTO policy?
I was texting with a girlfriend recently and she was laying out her schedule for the next few months — visiting the parents in their vacation town, then road tripping by herself for a week before meeting up with friends for a joint vacation, and then visiting her inlaws in Europe for a while. WOW, I texted — you get a TON of vacation time!! She quickly clarified that no, she was going to be working for almost all of this time because she only gets a few weeks a year.
Another friend gets “unlimited vacation time” — but he works for a really small office and feels guilty for every second he takes off. So his three weeks spent visiting his parents (also in a vacation town) is also, primarily, a working vacation.
(Meanwhile, I don't know the specifics of a third friend's PTO policy, but he's got to be traveling at least 8-12 weeks of the year, and to international destinations where he isn't always available — I suspect that he does have unlimited PTO and actually does take it. But then he's very senior and basically only reports to the board, so it's entirely possible he negotiated for that much vacation time.)
I thought it might make an interesting discussion here — how much vacation time do you get? What happens if you don't use it all? If you view unlimited vacation time as a “dark perk,” how have you negotiated around it? (I'm not familiar with the author but he has some advice for negotiating around unlimited PTO…)
In the past we've talked about the best employee benefits and perks, as well as how many paid vacation days you get each year.
Stock photo via Stencil.
Always a con. It’s supposedly a perk but really a way for employers to get liability of accrued but unpaid leave off their books.
This. Well known by employment lawyers.
Seconding this. Also, if your comp relies on metrics like billable hours, vacation time is just illusory and only paying you back for nights and weekends worked.
I love it, but I am comfortable taking vacation without guilt. I traveled much more than two or three weeks this year.
How much do you take?
Good question! I didn’t even track it. I went on multiple international and domestic trips.
Con although it’s probably not as bad as something ridiculously low like 2 weeks.
It’s a pro for me because I don’t read between the lines and will take management at face value (much to their chagrin)
Con, as in it’s a con.
No payout of accrued vacation when you’re laid off or voluntarily leave. And those companies usually have a 24/7 culture where you’re not really on vacation even if you’re out of office.
I used to have unlimited vacation in a prior job. I took roughly 4 weeks of vacation, not including the various long holiday weekends (Thanksgiving, 4th of July, Labor Day, Memorial Day), which was the office norm. In my current position, I accrue CTO, and I don’t use nearly all of it. I take about the same amount of time off, maybe somewhat less. It would not be OK in the company culture to actually use all my CTO. The two situations are the same, except that I will be paid out my CTO balance when I leave my current job, so I guess that’s better.
Very generous sick and vacation leave > unlimited combo leave > stingy vacation unlimited sick > stingy combined PTO. So overall it’s on the better end of the scale, but it’s not the best thing.
I agree
This exactly.
Agreed. I have unlimited PTO and aim for 4 weeks of vacation. I do have to check email and texts while I’m out and usually end up working 30 minutes to an hour per day. I use sick leave as needed, but since I work from home, I don’t get sick that often and can usually manage to work at least half a day for something minor.
Previous job had 12 vacation days plus 6 sick days, which was not nearly enough. Unlimited PTO is an improvement.
The job before that had 3 weeks of vacation and unlimited sick leave, but it wasn’t really acceptable to take all or even most of your vacation. Plus it was billable hours, so you just made up the time with nights and weekends.
I say generally it’s a con, but I had it and it replaced 3 weeks and I used more than 3 weeks.
I think it’s hard to take big chunks of vacation, but I would take random Fridays and Mondays off plus full week type vacations.
This is kind of a tangent to the actual question asked but with respect to the stuff in the post about working remotely, I’d just say that sometimes this is entirely by choice and not because work is pressuring you to work or because you don’t have vacation time to take. My whole family treasures our 2 weeks of remote work and camp in a prime vacation destination every summer. We don’t use vacation for these weeks because 1) DH and I have been here a million times and prefer to use vacation in newer places, 2) our kid adores the day camp she does here, and looks forward to it all year long and 3) work is usually slow at this time of year and we can get away with a few shorter days. I’ve had acquaintances assume we do this because we struggle to take real vacations or don’t have enough vacation time, and that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
I think it’s mostly a con, but I’m also a lawyer and am of the opinion even defined PTO for lawyers is pointless unless it counts to your billable hour requirement. Which I’ve never seen a firm where it does.