I had 3 weeks and was 2 years away from 5 weeks. Recently our company changed to ‘unlimited’ for all employees over 5 years of tenure.

I’d rather have my 3 weeks back; at least then I could ensure that my taking time way was using benefits that were considered part of my compensation package - ‘unlimited’ is definitely more of a benefit to the employer than it is the employee; especially true in my world where I am ‘blacked out from July to Thanksgiving every year…no exceptions.

Yep. Companies love it because they don't have to spend the time and money to track individual PTO balances, and especially because they don't have to pay out any banked PTO when the employee leaves.

So it saves the company a bunch of money, while providing minimal benefit to the workers. Because "unlimited" isn't actually unlimited. There's still a limit, it's just undefined, often uncommunicated, and typically left up to your supervisor's discretion. Going from a defined limit to an ambiguous/subjective limit causes problems all of its own.

I've never heard of this. How the hell does that work?

It's the new big thing in the corporate world.

With "unlimited time off", they simply do away with the traditional earned/tracked time off. Instead, you can put in for any time off you want. Your supervisor (and up the chain) then either approves it or denies it.

In theory, as long as your work is getting done, you can take whatever time off you want. In reality, it doesn't really work that way, and studies show that it often can result in workers being able to take off less time than before, when workers and managers could see in black and white that they've definitively earned X numbers of days off this year.

Plus, like I mentioned in my previous post, you can no longer get compensated for any unused/banked time off that you don't take. And it can create a problem of workers unknowingly running into some indeterminate limit that management has in their mind of "taking off too much", as well as create inequalities with certain employees being able to take off more than others.

It's sold to applicants and employees as this great benefit, but really the big reason so many companies have moved to it is simply that it's easier on the company's books. It creates more problems than it solves, and is less ideal for the employees than the traditional time off scheme, IMO.

It's similar to going from hourly to salary. Good in theory, due to added flexibility. But in practice, more often than not, you end up getting screwed compared to when compensation per hour worked and annual vacation earned were defined in black in white, resulting in you working more with less pay/time off compensation. The only one really benefitting is the company, who's saving money on not having to pay overtime or track/pay out accrued leave.

OTOH, there are companies that allow PTO to roll over, government offices are famous for this, I know a guy that never took his vacation, and rolled it over into two years of PTO, took two years off straight and retired.

Not allowing PTO to bank is the better rule, use it or lose it but then again as the op said when you have times you can't take any due to work loads (seasonal) then you lose part of your compensation.

Unlimited paid PTO or unlimited unpaid PTO?

Does this mean the company guarantees your position will still be there if you take 3-5 months off?

Paid.

And sure, if your boss, boss' boss, etc. all approve you to take 3-5 months off.

But that's not going to happen.

Unlimited vacation time isn't "just show up when/if you feel like working". It's the same as tracked vacation, where you put in for time off approval for specific days. Just without a defined number of hours/days earned per year.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
OTOH, there are companies that allow PTO to roll over, government offices are famous for this, I know a guy that never took his vacation, and rolled it over into two years of PTO, took two years off straight and retired.

Wow, banking two years is definitely excessive. That's over 4,000 hours of accrued leave. And I'm shocked that his agency allowed him to just take it all before retirement, which is worse than the agency having to just pay him out for 2 years worth of pay at the end, since they couldn't even fill the vacant position for two years. So they lost both the money and 2 years worth of productivity.

At my prior agency, unused time off rolled over from year to year, but there was an upper limit to what you could bank.

When I left a few months back, I was nearly maxed out on vacation time banked at something like 200 out of 240 maximum hours, and was maxed out at 360 hours of sick time in the bank.

I got the vacation time paid out, basically an extra month's pay, but all the sick time was lost.

But starting next year, they are moving to only being able to carry 40 hours of vacation time in the bank, with any excess being lost.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
OTOH, there are companies that allow PTO to roll over, government offices are famous for this, I know a guy that never took his vacation, and rolled it over into two years of PTO, took two years off straight and retired.

Not allowing PTO to bank is the better rule, use it or lose it but then again as the op said when you have times you can't take any due to work loads (seasonal) then you lose part of your compensation.

Ours is use or lose, but we can 'roll over' 40hrs of PTO [can't roll over the 40hrs or 'sick' time or the 8 hrs of 'floating holiday' so we all use that first], but it has to be used by end of Q2. My company doesn't distinguish any of the PTO types, they're interchangeably usable.
Luckily, we get it 100% available on 1/1 each year & don't have accrue up to being able to take it.

My wife's former job, they could only use what they'd accrued, and were blacked out for the last 6 weeks of the year [retail]. So you couldn't take any PTO early, because you didn't have any yet & couldn't use it in Nov/Dec because they were blacked out on it.

With rollover I can take pretty much an entire month off.

I've lost a bit every year, would prefer an excess payout.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: P250UA5,

quote:

Originally posted by LS1 GTO:
Unlimited paid PTO or unlimited unpaid PTO?

Does this mean the company guarantees your position will still be there if you take 3-5 months off?

Paid and yes, his was a government job in the vehicle service department, yep, he left and they had to go without until the next budget year.

Can't blame him, they let him do it, managements oversight, they probably figured nobody would ever bank that amount of Paid PTO...

I’d be pissed if my company went to unlimited. I get 6 weeks plus Christmas week plus 5 sick, 3 personal, and 2 floating holidays. The company ensures no pay out even if you leave mid year. There is no carry over and you accrue vacation time slowly through out the year. We can take our years vacation time before it’s accrued. But never have too much accrued at once unless we wait till years end. Of course then there isn’t enough time to take it.

Our sick/medical and vacation time got combined many years ago into just paid time off. When that happened it was less time per year you could be out. And all it did was induce sickness spread throughout the office. What happens is sick people just come into work as they don’t want to use their PTO for medical leave. In turn they get everyone sick in the office.

Next thing they did was continually reduce rollover PTO. Once it was 3 weeks, then 2 weeks. Then during Covid, yes Covid, they reduced it to 1 single week, or 40 hours of rollover PTO time from one year to the next. I was on a leadership call and asked, why, of all times, would you do this? In the middle of a pandemic? And what happens when you get Covid during the holidays and you are really sick and need to take off at the first of the year to deal with the illness? It was crickets on the call. I mean that long ass pause on a conference call where none of the leaders had a got damn thing. Then one of them chimed in about disability. LMAO, yeah disability at my company pays at 80%. It’s all just a big bag of dicks.

Then there is the actual taking of vacation in January/February. This is routinely when I would take vacation. One to escape the cold of the winter here. Two, because it’s off peak, so the island(s) I visit every time are slower, and the surfs up (winter swells), and it’s humpback migrating season. I can no longer do that now. The company ruined that possibility. I don’t start the year with enough vacation to do it. We get “diversity” days, where I could pull it off but when I return from vacation I’d have zero hours in case of sickness or emergency. Meanwhile, it seems like 1/2 the company and definitely all the management takes off the final 2 weeks of the year for “holiday time”. Fuck…

Yeah, 'unlimited vacation' just seems like a way to screw employees out of time off.

Did they payout your accrued PTO after changing to the Unlimited model? Seems like they should have. The only reason I don't take my whole amount of PTO a year is so I have the opportunity to sell it back when I can. I'd start putting in for 5 or 6 weeks off per year every year, whether I needed it or not, if they went to this model because fuck 'em.

We're under a system where all is lumped under PTO, 200 hours per year (awarded by seniority), 9 holidays, 2 floating holidays, can carryover no more than 54 hours.

Back in the day we had sick days, vacation, holidays. I believe the company went to PTO then because most employees would bank their sick days & sell them back at the end of the year.

Would not be a fan of the unlimited PTO idea.

A lesson from a past company: If there are layoffs, any vacation time may be forfeited. Only a few states have laws requiring PTO time to be paid out if any employee is laid off.

I've seen this done as a one time margin improvement exercise as you an release the vacation accruals to the income statement.

I always thought it odd as it places more stress on the manager to manage time off based on the specific individual's performance/workload/work ethic.

Working for the man.... I feel for you folks....
Yes, Working for myself I never made any money (savings) or have any stock options... well other than those in steel and wood and some plastic and lead.... but at least my time has always been mine... be it unpaid. I now have the rest of the week pretty much off by my own choosing... put in over twenty hours on Monday and Tuesday. It's great bing part time.

"Unlimited" LOL

And they probably turn most requests down for this so-called "unlimited" BS

We had unlimited in a past gig. It was managed well. You honestly had to tell people to go on vacation and take a break. Plus a six week sabbatical at 5 years.

It was nice not having to bank hours, worry about vacation in February, etc. You sick? Stay home. Dealing with family sick? Go handle it. The rest of us got you.

What y’all have are leadership problems, not vacation plan problems.

It was fun, but that place got acquired and now back in the big corporate process of yesteryear.

Sounds ripe for favoritism.