How ‘unlimited PTO’ can undermine employee engagement
Too often, such generous policies come with a catch—or five. If your staffers can’t freely flee the workaday world, it’s not much of a vacation, is it? Perhaps a different approach makes sense.
Unlimited vacation time. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?
You get all the time off you want, but what’s the catch?
Of course, the business has to be in good standing—as a collective, the goals are being exceeded, and it’s making money, and, as an individual, you have to exceed your goals.
If those things happen, you can have all the time off that you want.
It’s a perk many startups use to lure talented performers away from competitors. It’s one we offer.
It turns out, there is an even bigger catch: Unlimited vacation time means you have to work during your holiday(s).
Humans are not robots
We do offer unlimited vacation time—and not with the catch that you have to work while you’re out—but it’s nearly impossible to get people to take vacation time .
Unlimited vacation is horrible; there will always be competition to see who took the least.
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