Unlimited paid time off sounds amazing to employees. They can take all the time they want! Go to the beach! Spent a week with their grandma! And no worries, they can still take the time they need to follow their favorite band around the world.
In reality, it doesn’t work that way.
Employees don’t get more time off (and may actually get fewer days away from work)
The Wall Street Journal says people with unlimited PTO take an average of 16 days of vacation per year, compared to 14 for people with limits on their PTO. That’s backed by previous studies, which have shown that people with unlimited PTO take fewer days off than their limited counterparts.
Either way, it’s not a huge amount of extra time. Americans famously have fewer days available than their European counterparts — the European Union has a minimum requirement of four weeks off — and every year, Americans leave one-third of their available time on the table. Getting “unlimited” time doesn’t change the culture of work.
to keep reading, click here: I’ve Been an HR Professional for 25 Years, and I Absolutely Hate Unlimited PTO
I have it and use it very carefully. I’m aligning it to what I had earned prior to the policy and am treating it as “use it or lose it.” It’s challenging, but I do enjoy it.
Unspoken rules keep pretty much everyone who didn’t write the policy guessing. Some guess more accurately; some less. It’s ultimately a problem with transparency and boundaries. In the age of global pandemics, widespread paranoia and “Me Too,” the only opacity you want is on employees’ clothing, and you want boundaries to be as clear as day.
If you have a specific company culture in which unlimited PTO adds no bad feelings, more power to you. But if you’re looking to implement unlimited PTO, know that the odds aren’t in your favor.
It was interesting reading about unlimited PTO because I have never heard of such a thing. I believe that unlimited PTO shouldn’t be a policy that a company has in place for numerous reasons. One of those reasons would be that employees will take advantage of that. Like you mentioned in your blog post, there will be employee that push the limits and utilize as much PTO as possible. With that being said, it may seem unfair if one employee takes more time off than the rest, creating a toxic workplace. I know of many employees that receive a set amount of PTO, but don’t use it all up because it rolls over to the next year. I feel like in this instance, it would be different because employees will be making a personal choice of keeping some extra days or using them all within the calendar year. I don’t know much about PTO because I haven’t worked a full-time job, just multiple part-time ones, but I am aware that each business has its own policies about PTO. I think it would be interesting to research companies that do have unlimited PTO and if there is any success in that. Also, I think it would be interesting to see how different employees react to having or unlimited PTO or not and if that makes any difference in their work ethic. In the end, it’s important for employees and managers to take time away from work, but unlimited PTO may not be the best approach for that.