Measuring my "Unlimited" Time Off
In late 2019 my company switched to an "unlimited" time off policy. Plans such as it have become common in the tech industry over the past several years. The basic idea is that, instead of traditional, vested time-off policies where you accrue a set number of hours or days of leave every payday, every month, or every year, and can get those hours paid out if you leave before being able to use them (that's the vested part), you just ask your boss for time off whenever you want and as much as you want, and maybe you get it. Employers call it "unlimited" because there's no set accrual amount. I quote "unlimited" because there will always be a limit- just this limit is arbitrary and undisclosed. It's actually just an unguaranteed time off policy.
How's it working so far, in practice? My boss- now my previous boss; he left the company a week ago and hasn't been replaced yet- was pretty mellow about it. He gave our team guidance that we should take off 4 weeks (20 days) per year. "Take a week a quarter," he suggested. That's a nice target as it's an increase from the 3 weeks per year benefit we had under the old, accrual based system.
Last year I came in short of my boss's 4 weeks/year recommendation. I took only 15 days off as there wasn't much value to having time off while so many things were closed due to Coronavirus and there was often too much work to really have a day off. For this year I'm behind the pace at the moment with only 3.5 days spent YTD. I've got 6.5 days off booked in June, though. That will get me up to the recommend pace with 10 days off at midyear.
Making sure I get my due in the second half of the year shouldn't be too difficult. I'm already figuring on 3 days around Thanksgiving to make it a full week off and 4 days between the Christmas and New Year holidays. Add a few more days across July, August, and September to make three-day weekends, and I'll get to 10. Maybe I'll even try getting to 11 or 12. Then I'll see if this much-ballyhooed "unlimited" time off plan truly is unlimited!
[This entry was cross-posted from https://canyonwalker.dreamwidth.org/67451.html. Please comment there using OpenID. That's where most of the action is!]
How's it working so far, in practice? My boss- now my previous boss; he left the company a week ago and hasn't been replaced yet- was pretty mellow about it. He gave our team guidance that we should take off 4 weeks (20 days) per year. "Take a week a quarter," he suggested. That's a nice target as it's an increase from the 3 weeks per year benefit we had under the old, accrual based system.
Last year I came in short of my boss's 4 weeks/year recommendation. I took only 15 days off as there wasn't much value to having time off while so many things were closed due to Coronavirus and there was often too much work to really have a day off. For this year I'm behind the pace at the moment with only 3.5 days spent YTD. I've got 6.5 days off booked in June, though. That will get me up to the recommend pace with 10 days off at midyear.
Making sure I get my due in the second half of the year shouldn't be too difficult. I'm already figuring on 3 days around Thanksgiving to make it a full week off and 4 days between the Christmas and New Year holidays. Add a few more days across July, August, and September to make three-day weekends, and I'll get to 10. Maybe I'll even try getting to 11 or 12. Then I'll see if this much-ballyhooed "unlimited" time off plan truly is unlimited!
[This entry was cross-posted from https://canyonwalker.dreamwidth.org/67451.html. Please comment there using OpenID. That's where most of the action is!]