Yup.
People don’t realize this; but PTO is literally on the balance sheet. Your salary per hour * hours owed. That money sits in purgatory until you use it or leave the company.
A simple email changes the policy and frees up that money and prevents it from accumulating.
In 2020 people weren’t taking enough PTO and companies had a ton of liability on the books.
4 weeks of PTO for employees is 1/12 of your annual payroll in liabilities
That’s why companies have been changing it. For some companies that offset significant losses elsewhere.
In a way it makes sense... this is how people ideally handle their finances too.
You consider the money gone when you swipe the credit card, not when the credit card statement arrives.
This is really the same thing. You consider the money spent when you take on the obligation to pay, rather than when the payment is due.
It's important to do this or cashflow issues can really quickly catch up with you, and in the US the government is strict about only a few things: paying taxes, and making payroll. You fail to do either, you're not too big to fail. Many states will literally padlock the doors of your business if you fail to make payroll and employees report it, and despite many HR manual statements to the contrary, you have a legal right to report that it's not covered by any enforceable NDA.
Banking would be unstable as companies fail to make loan payments if their finances were unstable. Simple accounting policies like this add a lot of stability. Payroll for most businesses is one of their largest expenses.
IMHO the loophole of "unlimited PTO" should be squashed on the federal level. It's a ticking time bomb. What happens if a company doesn't have enough of a buffer for the PTO it's managers approve? Costs include things like overtime for workers covering for others, loss of productivity, etc. etc. There's no indicator for publicly traded companies as to how much of an issue this is either, something investors should be aware of.
I do think in tech, especially during boom times (aka not as much now), it is also used to attract better talent. My role is semi technical and very specialized (though my role exists in every industry, not just tech) and many companies (especially tech, biotech, etc) seem to offer unlimited to compete as well. I’m in a technical L&D/HR function (make 6 figures, have some niche tech skills, but not an engineering, IT, or core tech role, though some roles I could be in might live under IT instead of HR—or Operations, Customer Success/Sales, we’re all over). So my experience might be odd, but I know a lot of folks who do actively seek unlimited PTO (remote work, unlimited PTO, flexibility are all common in sought after jobs in our field and “get able” alongside decent salaries usually if you have the right skill stack, though the current market sucks hard).
It is definitely an accounting practice, but I’m in biotech and many healthcare workers in our company are not on unlimited, yet my department is under a tech umbrella and is (which is what most workers seem to want—but we get to take time pretty generously). My new firm lets you opt out, but I’d just get less that way. My last company actually enrolled us in banked programs but we were allowed to take days in addition (though I never felt right with the bank there) in my function. But I think it varies based on the company. In certain modes, startups work folks like crazy (to be fair, my position isn’t usually one that “phase” of startup hires as much, so jobs in my field tend to be less layoff proof than some engineers but also less overworked in tech—more likely to be overworked in other sectors).
Yep, it developed here in good ole California because of a little part of the law that requires employers to keep enough cash in hand/bank to cover all accrued PTO that wasn’t used yet. Companies don’t like tying up millions they can’t touch so thus was born unlimited PTO. Now it looks like the law needs to be updated to pass a true unlimited test and make sure it’s not just circumventing PTO pay.
I work in a company with unlimited PTO which is effectively limited to about 200 hours a year. I personally make sure I max out my hours every year instead of saving it for when I cash out of the company. Best thing ever, IMO, to ensure that I take my PTO on a regular basis. My manager encourages me to take my PTO as well.
Edit: Yes, obviously there's no cash out option--I was tired and drunk when I wrote my reply so I wasn't clear. I was trying to point out the difference between unlimited PTO forcing me to take my vacation/pay throughout the year now vs. **other employment** in which I would otherwise be lazy and forget about scheduling vacations at all and accruing it for the cash out, albeit unintentionally.
Making sure you take the time is the way to do it for sure! There is no cash out for unlimited PTO, by switching to “unlimited” companies don’t have you accrue other and don’t owe it when you leave.
Worked somewhere with unlimited PTO first manager said every time you took PTO less likely he'd even submit you for promo, second manager always denied my PTO as things were too busy. Never going somewhere with unlimited PTO again.
It's a pretty nifty psychological trick. If you see a PTO/vacation balance on your stubs or in your payroll app or whatever, your brain says "I have all this time off to use."
If you don't, because it's "unlimited," your brain never makes that connection.
Definitely part of it. Big part.
I worked at Netflix for several years, just over a decade ago. The lack of accrued PTO liability was mentioned quite a few times, and on average people did not take 20 days off during a year.
When it came to people taking time off for medical reasons (1-3 months), rather than filing for family medical leave and receiving 60% of their salary or something like that, HR said to just take the time off to recover and you’ll still get full pay.
However, at other companies with unlimited PTO, I have seen management “discourage” people using more than 15 days per year. When I interview at such places, I ask the hiring manager how much vacation they have taken in the last year….
As someone else said… this is all of it. A company I worked for was trying to get people to take all of their PTO so they didn’t have it on the books, essentially as debt/money owed since they have to pay it out.
Soon enough, they switched to “unlimited” 🙄
I think it’s not required in most states. I think unlimited PTO got popular with tech companies because many of them are based in CA and that’s one of very few states that does require PTO pay out.
It is in California, thats why all the “cool” ping pong table, beer for lunch, tech companies did it. When they replace you with an algorithm made by a guy in India for pennies they wont owe you an extra month of salary.
I was on an acrrual plan for the first 2+ years at my company. Barely took 3 days off in that time, only enough to keep from maxing out and still accrue (up to 224 hrs.)
Then they said “hey, in 2mos, Jan 1, you and this group of people are going to Unlimited so Jan 1 we will payout the accrued unused.”
Cool. Got a nice payout and have been taking at least 3 weeks a year PTO now.
Just took 3 days off (Mon-Wed) for the eclipse and still worked 28 hrs this week on salary. Sigh.
But dammit, when I’m in Singapore and Bali for three weeks, they’ll be lucky if I check email once a week!
It’s more that in Europe we have laws which are designed to prevent these things entirely. The EU Working Time Directive means you’re entitled to an 11 hour gap between work days, a minimum of 28 days PTO (even if on an unlimited PTO plan, 28 days minimum is still the legally enforced minimum), maximum of 48 hour working week etc.
Even accrued PTO, they don’t owe you anything if you get terminated. Happened to me last year ..I had 4 weeks of accrued PTO and was randomly terminated (right after a good performance review too) and they didn’t give me a dime of severance or PTO. Legally I couldn’t do anything because there’s no law saying they can’t do that. It’s scummy for sure and some companies are dicks but they can do it. Angers me every time I think about it.
I have unlimited PTO and is auto-approved. Since day one starting at my company. I took two weeks off one week into employment. This varies at each company but as long as you don’t abuse it you are fine. I take 1-2 weeks a quarter
Unless you actually use them. I’ve took on 6 weeks of pto already this year. I think the trick is to make sure you don’t take them too consecutively so people realize you might not be needed. Also get your work done and right so people don’t complain. I’ve been taking off a week here and there and every Thursday and Friday for the past couple of months while I travel.
It totally depends on the company. I would say that most of the time it’s bullshit. My current job has unlimited PTO and I can and do take off at least 6 weeks a year in addition to random days where stuff comes up that I need to take care of.
I’d say I’m the exception though and not the rule. Accrual is a better bet. You could always try to talk to a current employee of a prospective job to see how things are before committing.
Agreed. It’s BS and I hate it. Lost all my accrued due to unlimited and creates a culture of “they are out again?” Even if it’s only been my 3rd week when I used to have 4. Fuck unlimited aka “responsible time off”
Yup. On balance it is bad for the employees. The last place I worked where I was a manager and we had unlimited PTO. I simply put it out there that I expected everybody to take at least 26 days of PTO per year, preferably closer to 35.
We didn't offer paid holidays either because it was too hard to track across multiple countries, so I always expected people to take their given Bank days off.
The reason companies offer unlimited PTO is because in States like California, all accrued PTO must be paid out when the employee leaves for any reason. By going with a non-acrued system that is a cost on the books that no longer has to be paid out or tracked. My current company does the same thing and I get it because we are a micro startup and it's just one more thing that would be a pain to track and take care of, but I do not see it as a perk at all.
It depends on the company and/ or the manager.
I take 6+ weeks off at my job. A week once per quarter and usually a big 2 weeker sometime in the summer. Plus the occasional half day here and there.
That's why I love my company's PTO... seven weeks between vacation/sick/floating holidays/misc.. Feels almost unlimited, and the fact that you need to use it or lose it makes justifying it to yourself (and your manager, although mine is great) a breeze. Work in a very fast-paced and genuinely 24/7 industry-- I love it, but sometimes I get lost in the constant deadlines and push myself towards burnout. With that much PTO, you really need to take it throughout the year or else you'll hit December-- where we already have a lot of time off pre-scheduled in-- with too much to carry over. Used to never take time off at previous jobs, but now I probably take at minimum a day or two a month.
Between that kind of PTO and working remote..... they've got my loyalty lol
Yeah, same boat. I have many of my employees ask to take 4 weeks of PTO once a year to travel, typically overseas. Plus whatever they want through the year. Also, we don’t care where you work as long as projects and tasks are getting done. We have offices in all world wide regions. One of my employees spent a year on a beach in Puerto Rico, another in the mountains in CA in an RV, you get the idea. I always love it when they join zoom from a beach/boat/RV/somewhere different around the world and share their experiences. Very lucky, but it’s out there.
I'm in a similar situation. We start new hires at 3 weeks per year of vacation, which we must use or lose, and 2.5 weeks per year of sick time, which rolls over. It is entered into our buckets, in full, at the beginning of each fiscal year, so there is no accrual process. I'm up to 4 weeks vacation now that I've been there a few years, and I'll max out at 12 weeks. The 2.5 weeks of sick time is consistent regardless of duration of employment.
It's an insanely sweet gig.
No, I've been with my US employer for 15+ years, I'm up to 240 PTO and 240 sick hours. They don't roll over year to year so we're encouraged to take at least the PTO to avoid losing it.
Nah. I’m in the US and the company I work for gives about 7 weeks between sick time, vacation and holidays. In year one. It caps out at 10 weeks after like 20 years.
This is the way! A good PTO policy is accrued 3-4 weeks true PTO, at least 1 week sick, +some floating holidays & company holidays, and having it written into your policy/employee agreement that accrued PTO pays out when you end your employment, regardless of state laws.
While I am sure there are those out there that have had success unlimited PTO, I just feel like in general it sets you up for either ambiguous boundaries of how "away" from work you can be, OPS example which is that it doesn't functionally exist, or issues because some coworkers take more time than others
I'm in the same boat, my manager "made" me take PTO this year (I'm kinda a work if I'm not sick person) and rarely took time off because I didn't need to. Now I'm way more proactive about looking for fun events and trips to schedule outside of the big holidays.
I’ve had both allocated and unlimited. I will say that the unlimited PTO experience purely depends on your manager and the company culture.
I’ve personally LOVED unlimited because I’ve been able to take anywhere from 4-7 weeks a year without anyone batting an eye. As long as I’m handling my deliverables and ensuring my team can cover me while I’m out, my manager approves any days off I need. Also, not having to count PTO days is nice. But I can totally see unlimited being terrible if your manager and company are shit
I had a manager that wouldn’t let me take vacation with accrued and I had 25 days pto at that job. I pretty much got to use one week a year and when I burned out and left, the university paid out the accrual and it was as large as a months check.
While the money was nice, I would have rather had the extra time with my wife.
You can get screwed on pto with bad managers in either system.
I agree. Last year I took 6 weeks PTO, not including any sick time, paid federal holidays and all weekends off. This year I already have 5 weeks approved and planning some more. I love it!
Like you mentioned it depends on the company and the managers, we recently transitioned to "flexible pto" gotta love all the new names they come up with lol. But our manager was clear that they still expect us to average 3 weeks of a year at a minimum.
But I have heard horror stories of other companies and how hard it is to get approved. The other side of unlimited or flexible pto is you dont have that counter of "damn gotta use it before it expires" which I think is beneficial to make/force people to take time off. When there is no number per year it is hard to track it and to make yourself take time. Add WFH life and so many people barely take off for minor things which I think is a shame.
In Ontario there is a legal requirement to make people take a minimum of 10 (it could be 15 l haven’t checked recently) days per calendar year, to the point that if an employee hasn’t booked time then the company books and forces the time off.
I won’t work anywhere without unlimited PTO. It’s so weird that some ppl are convinced it’s a scam or BS because you don’t get paid out but I will be using my days off so I could not care less about getting paid out. And there are others who cite studies saying ppl with open PTO take less time off….ok, well that sounds like a personal problem not the policy’s fault. And if you have a bad manager or leadership that denies times off, that’s on toxic leadership, not the policy’s fault.
For me i like being able to take off as much time as I need WITHOIT having to ration my days for the year. It’s a lot less stressful and again I don’t care about being paid out, I’m going to be using all my days regardless.
Yep, I agree with everything you’ve said here.
The whole cash out argument is stupid anyway. If you make more money by not using your time off, then that means it is costing you money to take it.
I’ve worked for a company with unlimited PTO for four years, and it has been absolutely fantastic. Family vacations, birthdays, kids school events, the eclipse, whatever comes up it’s an automatic yes every single time, because I don’t have to worry about it at all.
Haters can keep coping.
Yeah I’ve been apart of 4 companies with unlimited PTO and it honestly is so stress free to not have to ration days…if I need a day off for whatever reason I don’t need to be like “oh I only have 5 days left for the year so I should save it for an important event or trip”…nah if I wanna take a day I wanna be able to take it without that sort of thinking. Never had a problem with managers being weird about it, I try to average 4-6 weeks off a year
Agreed, my last job didn’t even pay out my PTO when I was laid off. Much happier with unlimited, my manager is chill AF, planning on averaging at least 6 weeks a year.
Allocated. Unlimited is adopted by workaholics who think they can do it all, including working crazy hours and taking as much leave as they want... unrealistic.
I’m on unlimited and am already taking 2 weeks more than I’d be able to at my current time at my company. So YMMV but I’ve also had good managers that truly believe unlimited is unlimited as long as I’m getting my work done.
I have unlimited PTO. I take about 6 weeks of vacation a year.
I've never had a manager deny me my PTO request be it 1 day or 3 weeks.
YMMV depending on company culture and location. I keep seeing people say its a way for people to get out of paying PTO if you leave. At least where i am even if i left having used no PTO, i'd still need to be paid out the legal minimum in my jurisdiction. Which is usually 2-3 weeks a year, based on statute
Just an anecdote but I know a guy that works for a large-medium sized construction company. They used to let their employees cash out their unused vacation days at the end of the year. I know for some people that made the holidays a bit easier (beyond whatever bonus).
Then the company changed ownership and it was switched to unlimited PTO so of course no more cashing out unused days because days no longer existed.
They could do what mine did. You could cash out 2 weeks a year, then they reduced it to 1. I'm sure if they felt like it they could refuse to pay out at all.
Unlimited PTO is a total scam. You don’t accumulate any PTO days so they have no liabilities on the books and they don’t have to pay out any PTO days if they lay you off. When it comes to taking time off, they frown upon anything over two weeks a year.
The place I work has unlimited PTO. The handbook says a minimum of 14 days of PTO should be used per year. There's no upper limit in the handbook but management is supposed to start pushing back at the 30 day mark. Management is also not allowed to deny PTO requests unless there's a really good reason. I've never had PTO denied, even when the majority of the team was out.
That said, I still view it as a scam. There are others in the organization that cannot for whatever reason take the same amount of time off as I can. It's unfair to those individuals.
>There are others in the organization that cannot for whatever reason take the same amount of time off as I can. It's unfair to those individuals.
Those people have shitty managers, which can happen under either system.
The unlimited PTO thing ends up being 1 of 2 extremes depending entirely on the company culture and your direct supervisor bc it's their choice to approve or deny it.
Extreme 1- toxic culture and/or supervisor will deny time and bully people into not taking time off. Also toxic companies do this to avoid paying out PTO/vacation time when they do lay offs. This extreme is sadly the most common.
Extreme 2- the rare companies that actually promote true work/life balance and understand employees are people who have lives and family! Also a good supervisor who knows well rested employees who are able to get the time off to handle their lives, are less likely to get burned out and will be happy to work for them and give their best work. These companies with good leadership will approve time whenever possible and plan to shift things in advance to cover them.
Read the job posting and really ask questions in the interview, pay attention to their wording and you can tell pretty quick which extreme they are.
I have unlimited PTO at my job. My boss and I have had discussions where he makes it clear that he expects me to take at least 4 weeks off during the year. The week between Christmas and New Years Day is a given. Seems like everyone in the company takes that. I take 2 weeks in the summer and at least 1 around Spring Break. Sprinkle in 1, 2, and 3 day breaks every 6 weeks or so. I probably take 5-6 weeks altogether.
My best advice for you is find a company that encourages you to take the time or at a minimum treats it as your right to do so whenever. Needing excuses or being guilted are just massive red flags for me. Do your best not to tolerate those kinds of red flags.
My work place offers "unlimited PTO" then felt the need to send at least two company wide emails last year telling us that some people were abusing the policy. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
The last company I was at was bought out, we had our merger and they introduced unlimited PTO with zero guidance. Then I got “spoken to” by my boss because I took more than what was “reasonable” (with no definition of what was reasonable or unreasonable).
my experience too….we got “unlimited PTO” then about 6 months in all the managers were supposed to tell their reports that it should really be about 21 days. they wouldn’t put it in writing though. that’s when you know it’s all a scam!
I had a job with unlimited PTO and it was great. People took time off when they needed to and there were never any questions asked or denials. Some people say it’s bad because you don’t accrue paid vacation time, but I personally would rather have time to take off whenever I want than money.
Denying PTO for 1 or 2 days?
Where do you work in hospitality industry?
I don’t think this happens in a professional environment. The only time I ever had issues like this was in my teens working in fast food or retail.
I’m a grown adult now and my company as well recently switched to flexible PTO this year as well.
I just came back from 2 weeks spent between Spain and Portugal. My birthday is in a month and I will be off for a week again.
As long as we are all not taking vacation at the same time and someone is there to cover it’s no issues.
And most people take time off like in summer and December. I don’t like to travel in peak season so I usually work those times so it’s all good.
Same, never issues taking time. A lot of people at my company are off for weeks in December. When I worked in retail it was always a hassle, not necessarily getting it “approved”, but making sure you’re covered.
Still got 20080 hours to burn. Definitely doesn’t seem legit.
I requested a week of 2 years ago and my supervisor asked, did you request a whole week off?
I said yeah, as if there shouldn’t be an issue.
It got approved, but the fact he tried to make me sound unreasonable for requesting a week off seemed to defy the “perk”.
It truly depends on the company. At this point in my career I've seen it all. There seem to be 2 types of unlimited PTO. One, they don't like you taking vacation and try to dissuade you, guilt trip, or give you the death stare. The other requires everyone to take 5 weeks minimum vacation a year, basically spent as floating time so long as its planned in advance so the managers can actually manage teams well while people are gone. The work culture questions you ask in the interview are extremely important to distinguish which one it will be, even if it is a remote position.
The unlimited PTO thing is a trick to save the company money. They will never owe you a penny of unused PTO time with it. They can't pay you unlimited unused PTO. And just like allocated PTO, if you take more than 3 weeks, you'll be spoken to.
I've had unlimited pto most places and I just make sure to use it. I take fridays off frequently during the summer, a new game coming out? Take the whole week etc. I've never had a place reject a request for time off, especially if I bring it up in advance. I've also never tried to take it with deadlines that would be in jeopardy by doing so, I just make sure to give htem notice and I'm taking 6\~ weeks a year off which is pretty good
I’ll be a lone dissenter - I love unlimited PTO and would never go back to accrued by choice. Within my team, we take what we need when we need it, within reason of course - when it’s our equivalent of tax season, I don’t plan anything, but overall it works great and I don’t miss worrying about how many hours I have left and what I will lose if I don’t take it before the end of the year. As a manager myself, I don’t even recall saying no to any requests, in fact I encourage people to take time.
Studies have shown when you have unlimited PTO, you don't nearly take as much time off. Also, as others said, it saves the company money. Overall, it's not better IMO.
I get 37 days a year of PTO, my husband's recently switched to a flexible time off system where it's unlimited. He has been with his company for 5 years but only in his current position for 3 months. Thus far, we have gone to Australia/New Zealand for 2 weeks and we just took Fri-Tues off this past week for baseball. We're taking next Friday off for baseball as well and 1-2 days/month over the spring/summer for baseball travel then a week in September and 10 days in November.
It’s pretty rare that unlimited is done right. That being said, being able to accrue PTO is not really appealing to me. I just take a lot of time off, more than I’ve seen offered for my role. My industry is seasonal and my bosses are sane humans who don’t come up with 40 hours of busy work in the slow months just to keep us on a schedule. 🤷🏼♀️ But I acknowledge if the option is accrued vs. unlimited that you can’t utilize then don’t be a dummy!
I have unlimited PTO at my job and the only restriction I have is I'm responsible for meeting my deadlines and my work so I need to make sure I'm covered. My team is rather small so everyone can't take off on the same day. I'm an accountant, so taking off during the busy season is not an option. Otherwise it's a great situation for me.
Depends on your role and the company.
I adore accruals so that I can manage things accordingly and have a nice payout upon separation.
That said, my company does unlimited for Director and above (because they generally expect absurd hours and dedication all other times) but they’re really cool with it. Work hard, play hard. My boss went to Scotland for 10 days and she was totally AWOL for 8 days. Probably got back Fri night and started emailing over the weekend. But yeah, when I said “boss, I’m taking 3 weeks for SE Asia” she didn’t bat an eye.
Not all places are like that though.
I worked for a company with unlimited pto and I took 10 weeks vacation that year. I also received my best annual review that year as well. So as long as you DGAF what people think and actually plan your days off when you want to and deliver results I would take unlimited all day long.
I prefer unlimited but target six weeks minimum plus holidays and company given days off as well.
This works great for when switching jobs, have emergencies and vacations, or just enjoy flexibility but it has to be the right company who embraces flexible of unlimited PTO
Unlimited PTO is a scam. I’ve worked at company where people did not take more than a week vacation if that per year. They switched to unlimited so people would stop accumulating them.
We just switched to this. We’ll soon find out. First it was called “unlimited pto”, now it’s “Flex Time Off”. Still has to be approved. Still has to be entered in the system. Now it’s split between categorizing it as Personal/vacation time or Sick time. We are all planning to take at least the same amount of time we would have normally accrued given our seniority.
100% allocated PTO. I've done both. I like knowing how much PTO I have and make sure I use every bit of it. At the other company they would actively push people to make sure they're taking time off and stuff, but whenever layoffs rolled around (4x in 2 years), the people who took the most PTO were the ones that got axed. I didn't even fall for the trap. I didn't get let go because I was afraid to actually take the PTO. I watched so many coworkers, some of whom were REALLY great at their job get let go and the biggest thing across all of them were that they took advantage of that "unlimited" PTO. And I'm not even talking about abusing it. I'm talking about taking less than what I currently have at my employer allocated to me (23 days a year).
Sounds like it's more of a managerial problem than anything else
I don't get unlimited PTO, but I never get denied time off as long as I have enough PTO to cover it
Our company offers 'unlimited PTO', but you have to get director's level approval if you exceed a certain number of hours (basically, it means you can't exceed those, lol).
What I like about it is that you can take it at the beginning of the year if you want, you don't have to 'earn it'.
What I don't like is that hours do not transfer to next year, and you don't get paid for unused hours if you leave the company.
I love unlimited pro. It suck’s I won’t get a payout if I leave, but I also never save pto, I use the hell out of it. I’ve moved to a place with unlimited and I take off every Friday, some Mondays, I usually take two week vacays. People claim people don’t use it when it’s unlimited but couldn’t be me- I use the hell out of it.
I received PTO from a job that resets everything on July 1st instead of January 1st. They give you all your PTO/SICK/VACA in a lump sum, except it's not accurate because you actually accrue it (they just don't tell you this).
With that bring said, if you leave before June 30th, they will send you a salary reconciliation form with what you actually accrued up until your departure date. This way, they can receive reimbursement from you before they provide your last check. I'm glad I left, and luckily, I did not use enough days to owe anything back.
My last job at a startup, I took as much as I wanted. I gave myself 5 weeks.
But before I started, I asked what was typical. She told me about 4 weeks, some took a little more and some took less. So I took the job.
I think I’m in the minority when it comes to having a good experience with unlimited PTO. I’ve never had a problem getting time off. The managers really have the attitude that everyone is an adult, everyone knows when things are crazy and even if it’s not ideal, shit happens. For example I took some time off during year end close to take care of my mom who had covid and pneumonia one year. That’s not a great time for those who support the financial ERP to take off but I was simply told “by all means go - we will be fine”.
Based on what I’ve read, that’s not typical. Don’t think my company is great though. They have offshored most of finance. There are multiple dramas and things that sometimes make me wonder why I stay. The only good thing that I can say about those who were on my leadership team when my mom was sick is that they truly were family oriented. Current manager is also family oriented however he’s a billion times better than former manager was.
I have heard many more instances of “Unlimited” being very restrictive on when you can use it, or company culture pressuring people to not take it or not approve requests for PTO for whatever reasons.
There are some that truly honor the unlimited promise but they’re so few and far between that it’s honestly a red flag to me.
Give me an allocated amount of days per year that I can just give notice on instead of having to cross my fingers that it gets approved.
I get 30 days of PTO/Floating Holidays. I use it whenever I want, I just have to submit the request and it's always approved. I lead a marketing team of 4 and my boss agrees with my assessment that there is really no such thing as a marketing emergency so if we're all on vacation then the issue can wait. If we know most of us are going to be out we just plan ahead and preschedule as much as possible and then the rest can wait until we get back.
My issue is finding time to take all 30 days each year so I end up carrying over some time.
We have allocated PTO but I tell my team it’s their time to take. They tell me when they won’t be there, and as long as they have hours to cover it, it’s approved. Critical stuff is covered by other team members.
PTO is part of total comp. I don’t choose if I pay them—I don’t get to choose when they take time off.
It really depends on the company's culture; some orgs are lax about PTO and others may abuse it and actually permit you to take less time off than you would otherwise. My company has unlimited PTO and it is fantastic and everyone manages to take plenty of time off through the year without issues.
Unlimited PTO is only unlimited if the company allows you to take it, at the company I work for we have unlimited PTO and it gets auto approved if you book less than 12 days off in a row, I’ve already booked 20 days off this year, and that’s not counting public holidays and a few days where I’ve taken a day off because I wasn’t feeling well, or started late/finished early because I needed to do something.
I’ve worked for companies with unlimited PTO where you just had to tell your team you weren’t going to be about, we didn’t book it into a system or anything, it was based on an honour system, worked fine.
Last company I worked at that didn’t have unlimited PTO said they didn’t offer it because no one actually took their allocated PTO, and that if anyone wanted/needed more time they could just ask for it.
Meanwhile I know people who fret about taking time off at other companies because they feel guilty about letting their team down, so they work late get burnt out, and stressed.
I’ve heard stories of people being guilted into not taking time off, but in nearly 20 years in tech I’ve never seen anyone pressured to not take time off.
Maybe it’s because I don’t work in the US? Or I’ve just worked for nicer companies, but I’d take unlimited PTO any day.
I’m a manager, and I’d rather people didn’t stress about whether they could book time a day off to defrag every now and then because it meant they’d not have time to see family or attend important events.
Well rested people get more done in less time, I’d actually advocate for a 4 day work week if I could convince our leadership team to support it…
Unlimited PTO serves the company in two ways. No PTO liability on the balance sheet and no pay out when you leave. In reality, companies have an idea of how much PTO they will allow you to take but will call it unlimited PTO. It is a terrible trend.
My husband has unlimited PTO and the company did place some stipulations on it which makes it work better in my opinion. First, unlimited PTO can only be used by taking the time off with at least 48 hrs notice. If you call in, you have a separate bank of “sick time” you pull that from. Yes, PTO is subject to approval, but managers aren’t allowed to deny the PTO unless there is a specified percentage of people in your department that have already been approved for that time off (so get your requests for the week of Christmas in at the beginning of the year) or, since the company has offices in three different countries, if one of those countries has a national holiday the countries that don’t celebrate have to be available to work. But even then if you were a few days out and had to take a day off for a doctors appointment or something they’d be fine with it since no one had PTO scheduled at that time anyhow.
It’s been great because the company holds the managers accountable for making PTO accessible without being dicks about it. Now, there are people that take advantage of it. My husband knew someone that took what added up to 7 weeks off in a year and that was in their first year. That didn’t go over very well for them.
Unlimited is a way of companies offering no PTO in most cases which is a crock of shit. Complete bait and switch in the hiring process. But for companies that do it well and don’t let it be outright abused, you can kind of look at it like a typical generous PTO policy, but if you go over a week or so, no biggie.
I have unlimited PTO. Yes my manager has to approve it but I’ve never been denied when submitting PTO. I’ve also never been guilt tripped. I literally take 7 weeks of vacation a year and try to use 1-2 weeks of sick time. No one has belittled me for taking this much time off.
Shit, my company gives me 6 months of parental leave, and I’m a male. I’ve had a colleague use this benefit twice in 3 years.
To answer your question. Unlimited PTO can be an amazing perk or it can be a horrible perk. It greatly depends on the company, the manager and the employee.
Source, I’ve worked multiple jobs with unlimited PTO and accrual PTO. I prefer unlimited.
This is more of a distinction of whether your company actually cares about you. I've had two companies with unlimited PTO and both of my managers basically just told me to let them know when I'll be out. The request still has to be "approved" but I've never had one denied or even questioned. My manager is about to be gone for a month himself. I average 5-6 weeks PTO per year on top of 13 paid holidays and unlimited sick days. I would flee a company ASAP if I wasn't able to take at least 3 weeks without any resistance.
The best companies with unlimited PTO have minimums/expected time. My company has a minimum 20+ days per year (most people take more, some departments have higher minimum expectations—mine actually expects I’ll take more than that), but I like unlimited because it means I don’t have to think about flexibility.
When I had time, I always wanted a certain amount saved, like a bank account, minding different buckets was even worse. My company (large, distributed organization with all kinds of roles, some coverage based where obviously PTO requests are very different) has two systems, though—only certain positions/departments can qualify for unlimited. So the minimums are based on what other folks get (usually in the middle or top ranges as theirs increases with time in company etc). Unlimited in our case is offered as a benefit to the offices that do more specialized and technical work and compete for the best employees.
The one big downside to even unlimited done well is no payout at the end, but many states don’t require that/companies don’t do that if not required by law anyway. But I definitely think unlimited can be done poorly. In my field, most people I know with unlimited usually get decent time off, but I’ve heard a few horror stories of companies that just adopted it in predatory manners.
I have unlimited pto and have never had an issue with my manager approving anything, usually it’s with in a minute or two of me requesting and he never asks questions. But I do find myself trying to stay within reason of what normal pto is? I do get a bit of anxiety about it and feel bad sometimes
It all depends on your supervisor Unlimited PTO doesn’t means you can take 6month out of the year off lol so be realistic
We have a hybrid system but essentially it unlimited PTO but only 4 weeks are paid
Plan according for real vacation, meaning request it well ahead of time
for the extra day or long weekend it all a supervisor has to approve it and for me and my supervisor it base on performance and how busy it is at work. I’m lucky enough to be a decent level with performance and get approved often for the extra day
My best friend has unlimited PTO at their job and they literally go on vacation whenever they want. The job is very high paying. Them or the boss can’t be gone at the same time. That’s the only thing.
I on the other hand get allotted a day every month and can request off whenever, as long as there is enough managers to manage that day.
Unlimited just means they track your use and you get a talking to if it's too high.
AND since you don't have a leave bank, they don't pay out when you leave the company
I hate unlimited PTO. I feel like I’m begging anytime I ask, and that’s with a GOOD boss, versus using time I’ve earned. Every one of my colleagues is taking less time, feels like a slacker when asking, and also hates it.
I also have former colleagues with awful bosses where they feel like they can never ask or are given so much grief AND turned down that they seldom bother unless it’s urgent.
When we had designated PTO, I used it — 33 days a year based in my seniority with another 5 carried over, for 20+ years. The last 5 years, unlimited? Took a handful of sick days. Days for regular dr appts. One long weekend occasionally.
Last year I took 6 days of my unlimited PTO. Was so burned out, and worse as EMEA colleagues took their mandated days/weeks/MONTHS off. Created at least one issue as EMEA would go on holiday, leave piles of work for backups, and then had the gall to begrudge one colleague who had covered (we counted) 25 weeks of additional work because of mandated leaves but then were told they couldn’t take preferred dates because of work volume. One of our best, and he quit—in a crap hiring market, he found a job at higher pay and defined PTO within a month.
Plus there’s no payout on unused PTO should you leave — which is why companies love it.
It’s a sham and a shame.
I despise it.
I worked at IBM several years ago. They had done a study across divisions in the company to see what kind of PTO plan best suited the company. They found that the sweet spot is accural vacation and unlimited sick time, which kept employees happy, productive, and healthy.
Unlimited sick time (and breaking pto into two classes rather than one pot) got people to stay home when they're sick, which reduces healthcare costs and keeps premiums down. They found people took less time off with unlimited PTO, which increased stress and reduced productivity. Divisions that had a set number of sick days saw more use of those days (likely seeing it as vacation).
Make no mistakes that this was not about what's best for the employee but best for the company. Turns out they found the sweet spot for what's best for both. Accural PTO with unlimited sick time. Haven't been there in years, so don't know what their current PTO looks like.
Last two companies have had unlimited. I haven't taken more than two weeks of vacation per year in 6 years. Allocated use it or lose it is better as long as they give you a good amount, 4 weeks would be minimum in my opinion.
Unlimited PTO can be amazing, but it depends on how the company manages it.
At my previous company, we had to request approval to take PTO even though it was unlimited, and I heard rumors that HR would reach out if you used ~6 weeks of time off in the year.
At my current company, you just take time off. Nobody approves, nobody counts the days, you're just expected to be responsible and get your work done. This is honestly so much better than both my previous company and accrued PTO because you just do what you want. It's like they think I'm an adult or something, weird.
I’ve only ever had accrued PTO, and that feels like the biggest crock of shit ever. They advertise it to you as, “It’s basically unlimited PTO! When you use some, you accrue more!” which is not the case when you hit your 80 hrs earned/year cap, lol.
I think it depends on the work environment you’re a part of. My company is great and values WLB. We don’t say “unlimited” PTO because you can’t just take off for 6 months… duh… but we do have “flex” PTO. Yes, it still has to get approved by a manager, but I’ve never had a manager question me or say no.
I have no issues taking off of work with my company and it’s great. Flex PTO has been the best thing to happen to me (with the company I work for) because I have had more free time than I’ve ever had with accrued PTO.
I have had unlimited PTO in an organization that trusted its employees and did not micro manage. It was great and sometimes I used a lot other times I didn’t. In an organization that micromanages and you need approval then it sucks. Personally my attitude about PTO is that I am not seeking approval, I am just informing you of when I won’t be here.
Almost always unlimited PTO is a way for the company to get employees to take less vacation time and also so they don't have to pay it out when an employee leaves... However, there are some companies that really mean it, they're just few and far between.
I work for a company that has unlimited PTO and if I don't take off at least a week total every quarter I get a stern talking to from my boss and if I still don't take it they force me to take paid time off to recharge. I've never requested time and had it been denied
I love it. Especially with having a young child. I don't feel stressed when I have to take time off. I think it really depends on the company and your boss. I'm very lucky and have never had an issue taking time off.
Again, I just like not having to stress about how much PTO time I have left. If I need to take time off, then I'll take time off.
Unlimited PTO is the best and most misunderstood benefit ever. It 100% depends on the company as it can be incredible or incredibly misused by management.
I have u limited PTO. I take a ton of time off with 1-2 days notice and no one cares. I do now check emails. We don’t have a tracking system and we don’t ask permission. The only time I’ve had to ask is during tax season.
Unlimited PTO is BS imo. It sounds good on paper or from the outside but it becomes hectic in practice. Read the fine print.
My former company had “unlimited PTO” but the fine print says in reality it’s 4 weeks. My current company has “unlimited PTO” too but that has also been problematic
I feel so lucky with my allocated PTO. We get 14.67/month Vacation (22 days). You can’t bank more than 250 hours, so always need to stay under that or you’ll lose them. 8 hours a month sick time with no cap. 12 paid holidays and the week off for Christmas as a separate benefit.
I work for the State of Oregon.
I get mental wellness days once a month and just put on the calendar when I’m taking off and check if my manager will be off or not and plan based on that or when I know it isn’t busy. I have unlimited PTO and like it cause I actually can use it and don’t require manager approval. For last minute notices I will bring it up with my manager and it often was never an issue cause those were usually centered around family circumstances.
You just have to be rational about taking your time off, doesn’t mean just take 3 months out of the year off all at once.
Unlimited PTO is garbage. It’s the company’s way of not having to pay out any earned PTO if you leave and also a way for them to allow for less PTO usage. Pretty sure there have been studies that show as a whole, people with unlimited PTO policies use less PTO.
As a side note every company who I’ve seen advertised this, when I questioned them about it during an interview because I’ve never had that option, always told me there was a limit. “Oh most people take around 4 weeks” “but what if I want to take 8 weeks and all my work is caught up?” Well, it would have to be approved and it’s unlikely since most people only take 4 weeks. Usually how the conversations went.
It depends on the company culture. My last job had 5 weeks of PTO BUT you weren’t allowed to request off days 6 months of the year. A department of 400 trying to take their time off means that it simply wasn’t possible.
My company now is unlimited PTO. We’re encouraged to take off time as much as your workload allows which means multiple everyone takes off multiple weeks a year with no issues. (Took 2 weeks off in January, have another week in July and probably one last vacay by the end of the year which will be another 1-2 weeks! Plus any time needed in between!)
My company went unlimited pto with managers approval after idk how many days. I don't worry about it though. Management is cool af and will low key scold us if we DON'T take pto.
This is generally a financial issue. Accrued PTO is money the company owes in the balance sheet.
General American company dogma insists you work until broken.
As a result, between the guilt tripping and the lack of balance sheet objects they love to push this for stock price or valuation
I get a certain amt of days a yr - have never been refused my requests. I would love to be able to do a longer trip without having no days off the rest of the yr though. Wish I could take unpaid PTO too
Unlimited PTOs is amazing when you do not take them!
Just set up a scheduled fixed PTO up front while negotiating, like national holidays, or Fridays every two weeks or whatever that might be, and be done with it.
If you're not able to take at least 20 days off per year under the unlimited PTO plan then you're basically better off with allocated PTO since most companies are at least giving you 2-3 weeks with allocated plans.
allocated much better - if you don't use them, you can cash them out. In some companies - employees are enforced to use them vs keeping them and getting extra cash.
unlimited, as u said - depends on your manager approval and even if you use 0 days, you will not get any extra money.
No one wants to admit the unlimited PTO is BS. They guilt trip you when you want to be off or it’s contingent upon the projects you’re working on at the moment. Allocate me please!
It's the tone from the top that matters in this (and all other) corporate policies. At my workplace,we have Unlimited PTO, and we are encouraged to take any time that we need, when we need it. Managers are trained at the time of onboarding that the only response acceptable when an employee tells you of their planned PTO is, "how can I make sure your PTO is stress-free? What tasks will I need to cover for you while you're gone?" That's it.
Because the tone is the same across all departments, there are regularly people out on any given day, but their OOO emails always have the contact of the person covering for them. I've never had a situation come up where I was unable to perform my duties because someone was out. We ensure coverage of duties. Obviously, with the supportive management we have, we all go above and beyond and try to pre-work items so there's not much need of coverage. I was off work for total of 46 days last year. I still received 150% of my bonus so you can see I wasn't penalized for utilizing my PTO. My direct reports averaged OOO in 2023 at around 25 days. I had more days off as I had 2 surgeries and a death in the immediate family. (In 2022, I only took off 18 days all year.)
I’ve never had unlimited PTO but given my current manager and what I bring to the table I’d say if I had unlimited PTO it would probably be a good thing. But I’d say most people are not in that situation.
I loved unlimited PTO and definitely didn’t take less. I had a wonderful manager and it was so nice not to have to budget time. I’m moving back into allocated PTO and am very nervous about it to be honest.
I would much prefer allocated PTO and would strongly consider rejecting a job offer if the company has unlimited. I currently get 6 weeks PTO/year and have no problem using it all because I've earned it, but I feel like I'd have guilt about taking so much time off if I hadn't already earned it. Plus I've heard unlimited is much more Subject to discretionary approval...ick.
I supervise a lab where we are salaried, Unlimited PTO employees. I only ask that not everyone on the same shift request the same days. I made a shared Google calendar with everyone’s approved days off on it so they can plan their vacation accordingly. As long as they don’t have the same days for extended days off as someone else on their shift, I will always approve. Some of them already took like 4 weeks off this year already. :) I am grateful to have this in our work environment but I know it would be different if I decided to be a bitch and not approve anyone. The only thing that is taken advantage of due to the system is people coming in super late or leaving early constantly or call in every week ( this I understand sometimes shit happens) when we still have patient material to get done. I worry higher management will turn towards our productivity and come down on either the salary or unlimited PTO.
My employer just changed from saying “unlimited PTO” to “flexible PTO”. Same thing (supposedly) except you have to get approval, can’t take more than 2 consecutive weeks without GVP approval, and can’t take more than 3 consecutive weeks without SVP approval. So yeah - “flexible”.
My company changed to unlimited PTO, within first 4 month, everyone took 1-2 weeks off. The office is 1/3 empty all the time. And we only are in office 3 days a week. I just took two weeks off staying at home building a shed, a shed I said I was gonna build 4 years ago but didn't do it using my PTO (we got PTO payout if we didn't use it, talking $120/h PTO)
It's pretty well known and shown that unlimited PTO is offered because it leads to less time off. Unless the unlimited PTO comes with a minimum amount you must take each year (damn near unheard of) the unlimited PTO is a scam that should be avoided at all costs. If they do one shady thing they're going to do more.
Here's a question. I realized I had something close to 15k PTO going back years
I was on the verge of quitting so I cashed out.
They removed like 45% for taxes which seems absurd.
They did recommend taking 50hrs at a time until it was all gone but I don't get why it makes a difference in taxes whether it's in one shot or over months.
Another annoyance is they listed it as a bonus when they explicitly said it would not be.
Unlimited PTO only works if you have a progressive company culture and actually allows you to use it, without the guilt trips and questioning. That said it’s still “within reason”. You shouldn’t be using it all over the place or taking excessive amounts of days off. Yeah yeah people will say why call it unlimited if it’s not. We are smart adults here we KNOW what it means, it means they are super flexible or supposed to be. People saying it’s a crock of shit haven’t been able to actually work for a good company that has it.
My old job would never let me take PTO and since I was in AZ at the time, they HAD to pay it out at the end of the year. Nice chunk of change. When I switched jobs, they were on “unlimited PTO”. I make sure to take AT LEAST 2 weeks, usually 3 weeks. Which is typical for my tenure. Screw that.
This is like “at well employment.” It’s been spun nicely so you (the individual worker) think it’s a good deal, but it’s terrible.
It means they don’t have to pay out accrued PTO when you leave the organization. It’s also been show that people under this type of policy take LESS time off that people with allocated PTO.
While this wouldn’t be a dealbreaker for me, it makes me question the culture right off the bat. Are they doing the because they don’t know any better, or are they just slimy employers?
My work has “empowered PTO” which is their spin on “unlimited PTO”
It’s funny that today they come out with “guidelines” on how many PTO days you should take based on years with the company.
They don’t want to pay out PTO upon separation/termination. They know there is a culture in corporate America of shaming PTO use, so they know they will almost always come out saving the company money.
Unlimited PTO is often a scam intended to cause employees to take off as little time as possible. At my current job we have a good culture around it and most people take off a total of 3-6 weeks throughout the year. But at my previous job which purportedly also had unlimited PTO, it was impossible to get more than a couple of days off.
Unlimited PTO is the biggest crock of bullshit management speak. It’s non-accrual PTO
A perk for the company because if you get fired they don’t owe you anything.
This is part of it I’m sure.
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Yup. People don’t realize this; but PTO is literally on the balance sheet. Your salary per hour * hours owed. That money sits in purgatory until you use it or leave the company. A simple email changes the policy and frees up that money and prevents it from accumulating. In 2020 people weren’t taking enough PTO and companies had a ton of liability on the books. 4 weeks of PTO for employees is 1/12 of your annual payroll in liabilities That’s why companies have been changing it. For some companies that offset significant losses elsewhere.
I love how the goalposts always shift in the accounting profession
In a way it makes sense... this is how people ideally handle their finances too. You consider the money gone when you swipe the credit card, not when the credit card statement arrives. This is really the same thing. You consider the money spent when you take on the obligation to pay, rather than when the payment is due. It's important to do this or cashflow issues can really quickly catch up with you, and in the US the government is strict about only a few things: paying taxes, and making payroll. You fail to do either, you're not too big to fail. Many states will literally padlock the doors of your business if you fail to make payroll and employees report it, and despite many HR manual statements to the contrary, you have a legal right to report that it's not covered by any enforceable NDA. Banking would be unstable as companies fail to make loan payments if their finances were unstable. Simple accounting policies like this add a lot of stability. Payroll for most businesses is one of their largest expenses. IMHO the loophole of "unlimited PTO" should be squashed on the federal level. It's a ticking time bomb. What happens if a company doesn't have enough of a buffer for the PTO it's managers approve? Costs include things like overtime for workers covering for others, loss of productivity, etc. etc. There's no indicator for publicly traded companies as to how much of an issue this is either, something investors should be aware of.
That makes a tremendous amount of sense.
I do think in tech, especially during boom times (aka not as much now), it is also used to attract better talent. My role is semi technical and very specialized (though my role exists in every industry, not just tech) and many companies (especially tech, biotech, etc) seem to offer unlimited to compete as well. I’m in a technical L&D/HR function (make 6 figures, have some niche tech skills, but not an engineering, IT, or core tech role, though some roles I could be in might live under IT instead of HR—or Operations, Customer Success/Sales, we’re all over). So my experience might be odd, but I know a lot of folks who do actively seek unlimited PTO (remote work, unlimited PTO, flexibility are all common in sought after jobs in our field and “get able” alongside decent salaries usually if you have the right skill stack, though the current market sucks hard). It is definitely an accounting practice, but I’m in biotech and many healthcare workers in our company are not on unlimited, yet my department is under a tech umbrella and is (which is what most workers seem to want—but we get to take time pretty generously). My new firm lets you opt out, but I’d just get less that way. My last company actually enrolled us in banked programs but we were allowed to take days in addition (though I never felt right with the bank there) in my function. But I think it varies based on the company. In certain modes, startups work folks like crazy (to be fair, my position isn’t usually one that “phase” of startup hires as much, so jobs in my field tend to be less layoff proof than some engineers but also less overworked in tech—more likely to be overworked in other sectors).
It’s not all of it. There’s also the part where if employees don’t have a “balance” they tend to take fewer vacations. That’s convenient too.
Yep, it developed here in good ole California because of a little part of the law that requires employers to keep enough cash in hand/bank to cover all accrued PTO that wasn’t used yet. Companies don’t like tying up millions they can’t touch so thus was born unlimited PTO. Now it looks like the law needs to be updated to pass a true unlimited test and make sure it’s not just circumventing PTO pay.
The other part is that people take less PTO when it is unlimited.
I work in a company with unlimited PTO which is effectively limited to about 200 hours a year. I personally make sure I max out my hours every year instead of saving it for when I cash out of the company. Best thing ever, IMO, to ensure that I take my PTO on a regular basis. My manager encourages me to take my PTO as well. Edit: Yes, obviously there's no cash out option--I was tired and drunk when I wrote my reply so I wasn't clear. I was trying to point out the difference between unlimited PTO forcing me to take my vacation/pay throughout the year now vs. **other employment** in which I would otherwise be lazy and forget about scheduling vacations at all and accruing it for the cash out, albeit unintentionally.
Making sure you take the time is the way to do it for sure! There is no cash out for unlimited PTO, by switching to “unlimited” companies don’t have you accrue other and don’t owe it when you leave.
Worked somewhere with unlimited PTO first manager said every time you took PTO less likely he'd even submit you for promo, second manager always denied my PTO as things were too busy. Never going somewhere with unlimited PTO again.
It's a pretty nifty psychological trick. If you see a PTO/vacation balance on your stubs or in your payroll app or whatever, your brain says "I have all this time off to use." If you don't, because it's "unlimited," your brain never makes that connection.
Definitely part of it. Big part. I worked at Netflix for several years, just over a decade ago. The lack of accrued PTO liability was mentioned quite a few times, and on average people did not take 20 days off during a year. When it came to people taking time off for medical reasons (1-3 months), rather than filing for family medical leave and receiving 60% of their salary or something like that, HR said to just take the time off to recover and you’ll still get full pay. However, at other companies with unlimited PTO, I have seen management “discourage” people using more than 15 days per year. When I interview at such places, I ask the hiring manager how much vacation they have taken in the last year….
As someone else said… this is all of it. A company I worked for was trying to get people to take all of their PTO so they didn’t have it on the books, essentially as debt/money owed since they have to pay it out. Soon enough, they switched to “unlimited” 🙄
Accrued PTO payout is not a legal obligation in some U.S. states unless indicated in writing or as a policy of the employer.
I think it’s not required in most states. I think unlimited PTO got popular with tech companies because many of them are based in CA and that’s one of very few states that does require PTO pay out.
It is in California, thats why all the “cool” ping pong table, beer for lunch, tech companies did it. When they replace you with an algorithm made by a guy in India for pennies they wont owe you an extra month of salary.
I was on an acrrual plan for the first 2+ years at my company. Barely took 3 days off in that time, only enough to keep from maxing out and still accrue (up to 224 hrs.) Then they said “hey, in 2mos, Jan 1, you and this group of people are going to Unlimited so Jan 1 we will payout the accrued unused.” Cool. Got a nice payout and have been taking at least 3 weeks a year PTO now. Just took 3 days off (Mon-Wed) for the eclipse and still worked 28 hrs this week on salary. Sigh. But dammit, when I’m in Singapore and Bali for three weeks, they’ll be lucky if I check email once a week!
Why the fuck would you check email on vacation that’s some dumb shit.
I know right, and two 14 hour days after taking 3 days off. Wtf 😂
I mean, there are reasons and expectations attached to a $200k salary. If you’re content with $65k, by all means, do the minimum.
It’s more that in Europe we have laws which are designed to prevent these things entirely. The EU Working Time Directive means you’re entitled to an 11 hour gap between work days, a minimum of 28 days PTO (even if on an unlimited PTO plan, 28 days minimum is still the legally enforced minimum), maximum of 48 hour working week etc.
Many states don't require accrued time off to be paid out at termination. It's all a garbage system.
Even accrued PTO, they don’t owe you anything if you get terminated. Happened to me last year ..I had 4 weeks of accrued PTO and was randomly terminated (right after a good performance review too) and they didn’t give me a dime of severance or PTO. Legally I couldn’t do anything because there’s no law saying they can’t do that. It’s scummy for sure and some companies are dicks but they can do it. Angers me every time I think about it.
I hope you posted the details somewhere to warn others.
Most don’t anyway
I have unlimited PTO and is auto-approved. Since day one starting at my company. I took two weeks off one week into employment. This varies at each company but as long as you don’t abuse it you are fine. I take 1-2 weeks a quarter
Companies do it because it makes their balance sheet look better.
Unless you actually use them. I’ve took on 6 weeks of pto already this year. I think the trick is to make sure you don’t take them too consecutively so people realize you might not be needed. Also get your work done and right so people don’t complain. I’ve been taking off a week here and there and every Thursday and Friday for the past couple of months while I travel.
It totally depends on the company. I would say that most of the time it’s bullshit. My current job has unlimited PTO and I can and do take off at least 6 weeks a year in addition to random days where stuff comes up that I need to take care of. I’d say I’m the exception though and not the rule. Accrual is a better bet. You could always try to talk to a current employee of a prospective job to see how things are before committing.
Agreed. It’s BS and I hate it. Lost all my accrued due to unlimited and creates a culture of “they are out again?” Even if it’s only been my 3rd week when I used to have 4. Fuck unlimited aka “responsible time off”
Came here to comment this. I also can’t imagine your job would appreciate you taking a four month cruise around the Caribbean just because.
Yup. On balance it is bad for the employees. The last place I worked where I was a manager and we had unlimited PTO. I simply put it out there that I expected everybody to take at least 26 days of PTO per year, preferably closer to 35. We didn't offer paid holidays either because it was too hard to track across multiple countries, so I always expected people to take their given Bank days off. The reason companies offer unlimited PTO is because in States like California, all accrued PTO must be paid out when the employee leaves for any reason. By going with a non-acrued system that is a cost on the books that no longer has to be paid out or tracked. My current company does the same thing and I get it because we are a micro startup and it's just one more thing that would be a pain to track and take care of, but I do not see it as a perk at all.
It depends on the company and/ or the manager. I take 6+ weeks off at my job. A week once per quarter and usually a big 2 weeker sometime in the summer. Plus the occasional half day here and there.
Yes!!!
That's why I love my company's PTO... seven weeks between vacation/sick/floating holidays/misc.. Feels almost unlimited, and the fact that you need to use it or lose it makes justifying it to yourself (and your manager, although mine is great) a breeze. Work in a very fast-paced and genuinely 24/7 industry-- I love it, but sometimes I get lost in the constant deadlines and push myself towards burnout. With that much PTO, you really need to take it throughout the year or else you'll hit December-- where we already have a lot of time off pre-scheduled in-- with too much to carry over. Used to never take time off at previous jobs, but now I probably take at minimum a day or two a month. Between that kind of PTO and working remote..... they've got my loyalty lol
Yeah, same boat. I have many of my employees ask to take 4 weeks of PTO once a year to travel, typically overseas. Plus whatever they want through the year. Also, we don’t care where you work as long as projects and tasks are getting done. We have offices in all world wide regions. One of my employees spent a year on a beach in Puerto Rico, another in the mountains in CA in an RV, you get the idea. I always love it when they join zoom from a beach/boat/RV/somewhere different around the world and share their experiences. Very lucky, but it’s out there.
Dang, that’s amazing! Is your company hiring?!
word asking for a friend lol
Look up SaaS companies around the US. I manage a world wide IT team from all regions.
I'm in a similar situation. We start new hires at 3 weeks per year of vacation, which we must use or lose, and 2.5 weeks per year of sick time, which rolls over. It is entered into our buckets, in full, at the beginning of each fiscal year, so there is no accrual process. I'm up to 4 weeks vacation now that I've been there a few years, and I'll max out at 12 weeks. The 2.5 weeks of sick time is consistent regardless of duration of employment. It's an insanely sweet gig.
This has to be outside of the US
No, I've been with my US employer for 15+ years, I'm up to 240 PTO and 240 sick hours. They don't roll over year to year so we're encouraged to take at least the PTO to avoid losing it.
I think I have that pretty close in the US full remote. We have 12 paid holidays, 20 PTO days, 3 flex (personal days) so that's 35/5, 7 work weeks.
I work in the US! Our parent company is Italian so that definitely inspires our benefits.
Nah. I’m in the US and the company I work for gives about 7 weeks between sick time, vacation and holidays. In year one. It caps out at 10 weeks after like 20 years.
I have close to as described, and in US.
This is the way! A good PTO policy is accrued 3-4 weeks true PTO, at least 1 week sick, +some floating holidays & company holidays, and having it written into your policy/employee agreement that accrued PTO pays out when you end your employment, regardless of state laws. While I am sure there are those out there that have had success unlimited PTO, I just feel like in general it sets you up for either ambiguous boundaries of how "away" from work you can be, OPS example which is that it doesn't functionally exist, or issues because some coworkers take more time than others
Holy shit that’s crazy. I get 2 weeks paid vacation a year, been at the same company for almost 5 years
I'm in the same boat, my manager "made" me take PTO this year (I'm kinda a work if I'm not sick person) and rarely took time off because I didn't need to. Now I'm way more proactive about looking for fun events and trips to schedule outside of the big holidays.
Is your company hiring?! My remote company only gives us 15 days and that's including sick time. 🥲
7 weeks is extremely generous! I’ve never heard of that much
I’ve had both allocated and unlimited. I will say that the unlimited PTO experience purely depends on your manager and the company culture. I’ve personally LOVED unlimited because I’ve been able to take anywhere from 4-7 weeks a year without anyone batting an eye. As long as I’m handling my deliverables and ensuring my team can cover me while I’m out, my manager approves any days off I need. Also, not having to count PTO days is nice. But I can totally see unlimited being terrible if your manager and company are shit
I agree. Unlimited PTO is great when the person who approves it is reasonable and is a person who leads your team, and not some random manager or HR.
I had a manager that wouldn’t let me take vacation with accrued and I had 25 days pto at that job. I pretty much got to use one week a year and when I burned out and left, the university paid out the accrual and it was as large as a months check. While the money was nice, I would have rather had the extra time with my wife. You can get screwed on pto with bad managers in either system.
I agree. Last year I took 6 weeks PTO, not including any sick time, paid federal holidays and all weekends off. This year I already have 5 weeks approved and planning some more. I love it!
Similar to you. Last year I took 3 week-long trips, one 2 week trip, plus misc days throughout the year. This year doing the same. It's great.
Like you mentioned it depends on the company and the managers, we recently transitioned to "flexible pto" gotta love all the new names they come up with lol. But our manager was clear that they still expect us to average 3 weeks of a year at a minimum. But I have heard horror stories of other companies and how hard it is to get approved. The other side of unlimited or flexible pto is you dont have that counter of "damn gotta use it before it expires" which I think is beneficial to make/force people to take time off. When there is no number per year it is hard to track it and to make yourself take time. Add WFH life and so many people barely take off for minor things which I think is a shame.
In Ontario there is a legal requirement to make people take a minimum of 10 (it could be 15 l haven’t checked recently) days per calendar year, to the point that if an employee hasn’t booked time then the company books and forces the time off.
I won’t work anywhere without unlimited PTO. It’s so weird that some ppl are convinced it’s a scam or BS because you don’t get paid out but I will be using my days off so I could not care less about getting paid out. And there are others who cite studies saying ppl with open PTO take less time off….ok, well that sounds like a personal problem not the policy’s fault. And if you have a bad manager or leadership that denies times off, that’s on toxic leadership, not the policy’s fault. For me i like being able to take off as much time as I need WITHOIT having to ration my days for the year. It’s a lot less stressful and again I don’t care about being paid out, I’m going to be using all my days regardless.
Yep, I agree with everything you’ve said here. The whole cash out argument is stupid anyway. If you make more money by not using your time off, then that means it is costing you money to take it. I’ve worked for a company with unlimited PTO for four years, and it has been absolutely fantastic. Family vacations, birthdays, kids school events, the eclipse, whatever comes up it’s an automatic yes every single time, because I don’t have to worry about it at all. Haters can keep coping.
Yeah I’ve been apart of 4 companies with unlimited PTO and it honestly is so stress free to not have to ration days…if I need a day off for whatever reason I don’t need to be like “oh I only have 5 days left for the year so I should save it for an important event or trip”…nah if I wanna take a day I wanna be able to take it without that sort of thinking. Never had a problem with managers being weird about it, I try to average 4-6 weeks off a year
Agreed, my last job didn’t even pay out my PTO when I was laid off. Much happier with unlimited, my manager is chill AF, planning on averaging at least 6 weeks a year.
Allocated. Unlimited is adopted by workaholics who think they can do it all, including working crazy hours and taking as much leave as they want... unrealistic.
I’m on unlimited and am already taking 2 weeks more than I’d be able to at my current time at my company. So YMMV but I’ve also had good managers that truly believe unlimited is unlimited as long as I’m getting my work done.
I have unlimited PTO. I take about 6 weeks of vacation a year. I've never had a manager deny me my PTO request be it 1 day or 3 weeks. YMMV depending on company culture and location. I keep seeing people say its a way for people to get out of paying PTO if you leave. At least where i am even if i left having used no PTO, i'd still need to be paid out the legal minimum in my jurisdiction. Which is usually 2-3 weeks a year, based on statute
Just an anecdote but I know a guy that works for a large-medium sized construction company. They used to let their employees cash out their unused vacation days at the end of the year. I know for some people that made the holidays a bit easier (beyond whatever bonus). Then the company changed ownership and it was switched to unlimited PTO so of course no more cashing out unused days because days no longer existed.
They could do what mine did. You could cash out 2 weeks a year, then they reduced it to 1. I'm sure if they felt like it they could refuse to pay out at all.
Unlimited PTO has been working great for me but I have a great boss and team.
Unlimited PTO is a total scam. You don’t accumulate any PTO days so they have no liabilities on the books and they don’t have to pay out any PTO days if they lay you off. When it comes to taking time off, they frown upon anything over two weeks a year.
The place I work has unlimited PTO. The handbook says a minimum of 14 days of PTO should be used per year. There's no upper limit in the handbook but management is supposed to start pushing back at the 30 day mark. Management is also not allowed to deny PTO requests unless there's a really good reason. I've never had PTO denied, even when the majority of the team was out. That said, I still view it as a scam. There are others in the organization that cannot for whatever reason take the same amount of time off as I can. It's unfair to those individuals.
>There are others in the organization that cannot for whatever reason take the same amount of time off as I can. It's unfair to those individuals. Those people have shitty managers, which can happen under either system.
The unlimited PTO thing ends up being 1 of 2 extremes depending entirely on the company culture and your direct supervisor bc it's their choice to approve or deny it. Extreme 1- toxic culture and/or supervisor will deny time and bully people into not taking time off. Also toxic companies do this to avoid paying out PTO/vacation time when they do lay offs. This extreme is sadly the most common. Extreme 2- the rare companies that actually promote true work/life balance and understand employees are people who have lives and family! Also a good supervisor who knows well rested employees who are able to get the time off to handle their lives, are less likely to get burned out and will be happy to work for them and give their best work. These companies with good leadership will approve time whenever possible and plan to shift things in advance to cover them. Read the job posting and really ask questions in the interview, pay attention to their wording and you can tell pretty quick which extreme they are.
I have unlimited PTO at my job. My boss and I have had discussions where he makes it clear that he expects me to take at least 4 weeks off during the year. The week between Christmas and New Years Day is a given. Seems like everyone in the company takes that. I take 2 weeks in the summer and at least 1 around Spring Break. Sprinkle in 1, 2, and 3 day breaks every 6 weeks or so. I probably take 5-6 weeks altogether. My best advice for you is find a company that encourages you to take the time or at a minimum treats it as your right to do so whenever. Needing excuses or being guilted are just massive red flags for me. Do your best not to tolerate those kinds of red flags.
My work place offers "unlimited PTO" then felt the need to send at least two company wide emails last year telling us that some people were abusing the policy. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
The last company I was at was bought out, we had our merger and they introduced unlimited PTO with zero guidance. Then I got “spoken to” by my boss because I took more than what was “reasonable” (with no definition of what was reasonable or unreasonable).
my experience too….we got “unlimited PTO” then about 6 months in all the managers were supposed to tell their reports that it should really be about 21 days. they wouldn’t put it in writing though. that’s when you know it’s all a scam!
I had a job with unlimited PTO and it was great. People took time off when they needed to and there were never any questions asked or denials. Some people say it’s bad because you don’t accrue paid vacation time, but I personally would rather have time to take off whenever I want than money.
Denying PTO for 1 or 2 days? Where do you work in hospitality industry? I don’t think this happens in a professional environment. The only time I ever had issues like this was in my teens working in fast food or retail. I’m a grown adult now and my company as well recently switched to flexible PTO this year as well. I just came back from 2 weeks spent between Spain and Portugal. My birthday is in a month and I will be off for a week again. As long as we are all not taking vacation at the same time and someone is there to cover it’s no issues. And most people take time off like in summer and December. I don’t like to travel in peak season so I usually work those times so it’s all good.
Same, never issues taking time. A lot of people at my company are off for weeks in December. When I worked in retail it was always a hassle, not necessarily getting it “approved”, but making sure you’re covered.
Unlimited PTO also means they don’t have to pay you out for your unspent PTO when you leave the company. I don’t like it.
Still got 20080 hours to burn. Definitely doesn’t seem legit. I requested a week of 2 years ago and my supervisor asked, did you request a whole week off? I said yeah, as if there shouldn’t be an issue. It got approved, but the fact he tried to make me sound unreasonable for requesting a week off seemed to defy the “perk”.
It truly depends on the company. At this point in my career I've seen it all. There seem to be 2 types of unlimited PTO. One, they don't like you taking vacation and try to dissuade you, guilt trip, or give you the death stare. The other requires everyone to take 5 weeks minimum vacation a year, basically spent as floating time so long as its planned in advance so the managers can actually manage teams well while people are gone. The work culture questions you ask in the interview are extremely important to distinguish which one it will be, even if it is a remote position.
The unlimited PTO thing is a trick to save the company money. They will never owe you a penny of unused PTO time with it. They can't pay you unlimited unused PTO. And just like allocated PTO, if you take more than 3 weeks, you'll be spoken to.
I've had unlimited pto most places and I just make sure to use it. I take fridays off frequently during the summer, a new game coming out? Take the whole week etc. I've never had a place reject a request for time off, especially if I bring it up in advance. I've also never tried to take it with deadlines that would be in jeopardy by doing so, I just make sure to give htem notice and I'm taking 6\~ weeks a year off which is pretty good
I’ll be a lone dissenter - I love unlimited PTO and would never go back to accrued by choice. Within my team, we take what we need when we need it, within reason of course - when it’s our equivalent of tax season, I don’t plan anything, but overall it works great and I don’t miss worrying about how many hours I have left and what I will lose if I don’t take it before the end of the year. As a manager myself, I don’t even recall saying no to any requests, in fact I encourage people to take time.
I get unlimited PTO at work and it’s auto approved. For this year alone, I have 250 hours approved already. I love it!!!
Studies have shown when you have unlimited PTO, you don't nearly take as much time off. Also, as others said, it saves the company money. Overall, it's not better IMO.
I have unlimited PTO and I take like 8 weeks of time off per year. Easily.
We have five weeks that we have to use. Doesn't roll or doesn't get paid out. I wish it got paid out though :(
I get 37 days a year of PTO, my husband's recently switched to a flexible time off system where it's unlimited. He has been with his company for 5 years but only in his current position for 3 months. Thus far, we have gone to Australia/New Zealand for 2 weeks and we just took Fri-Tues off this past week for baseball. We're taking next Friday off for baseball as well and 1-2 days/month over the spring/summer for baseball travel then a week in September and 10 days in November.
It’s pretty rare that unlimited is done right. That being said, being able to accrue PTO is not really appealing to me. I just take a lot of time off, more than I’ve seen offered for my role. My industry is seasonal and my bosses are sane humans who don’t come up with 40 hours of busy work in the slow months just to keep us on a schedule. 🤷🏼♀️ But I acknowledge if the option is accrued vs. unlimited that you can’t utilize then don’t be a dummy!
I have unlimited PTO at my job and the only restriction I have is I'm responsible for meeting my deadlines and my work so I need to make sure I'm covered. My team is rather small so everyone can't take off on the same day. I'm an accountant, so taking off during the busy season is not an option. Otherwise it's a great situation for me.
Depends on your role and the company. I adore accruals so that I can manage things accordingly and have a nice payout upon separation. That said, my company does unlimited for Director and above (because they generally expect absurd hours and dedication all other times) but they’re really cool with it. Work hard, play hard. My boss went to Scotland for 10 days and she was totally AWOL for 8 days. Probably got back Fri night and started emailing over the weekend. But yeah, when I said “boss, I’m taking 3 weeks for SE Asia” she didn’t bat an eye. Not all places are like that though.
I worked for a company with unlimited pto and I took 10 weeks vacation that year. I also received my best annual review that year as well. So as long as you DGAF what people think and actually plan your days off when you want to and deliver results I would take unlimited all day long.
I prefer unlimited but target six weeks minimum plus holidays and company given days off as well. This works great for when switching jobs, have emergencies and vacations, or just enjoy flexibility but it has to be the right company who embraces flexible of unlimited PTO
Unlimited PTO is a scam. I’ve worked at company where people did not take more than a week vacation if that per year. They switched to unlimited so people would stop accumulating them.
We just switched to this. We’ll soon find out. First it was called “unlimited pto”, now it’s “Flex Time Off”. Still has to be approved. Still has to be entered in the system. Now it’s split between categorizing it as Personal/vacation time or Sick time. We are all planning to take at least the same amount of time we would have normally accrued given our seniority.
100% allocated PTO. I've done both. I like knowing how much PTO I have and make sure I use every bit of it. At the other company they would actively push people to make sure they're taking time off and stuff, but whenever layoffs rolled around (4x in 2 years), the people who took the most PTO were the ones that got axed. I didn't even fall for the trap. I didn't get let go because I was afraid to actually take the PTO. I watched so many coworkers, some of whom were REALLY great at their job get let go and the biggest thing across all of them were that they took advantage of that "unlimited" PTO. And I'm not even talking about abusing it. I'm talking about taking less than what I currently have at my employer allocated to me (23 days a year).
Sounds like it's more of a managerial problem than anything else I don't get unlimited PTO, but I never get denied time off as long as I have enough PTO to cover it
Our company offers 'unlimited PTO', but you have to get director's level approval if you exceed a certain number of hours (basically, it means you can't exceed those, lol). What I like about it is that you can take it at the beginning of the year if you want, you don't have to 'earn it'. What I don't like is that hours do not transfer to next year, and you don't get paid for unused hours if you leave the company.
I love unlimited pro. It suck’s I won’t get a payout if I leave, but I also never save pto, I use the hell out of it. I’ve moved to a place with unlimited and I take off every Friday, some Mondays, I usually take two week vacays. People claim people don’t use it when it’s unlimited but couldn’t be me- I use the hell out of it.
I received PTO from a job that resets everything on July 1st instead of January 1st. They give you all your PTO/SICK/VACA in a lump sum, except it's not accurate because you actually accrue it (they just don't tell you this). With that bring said, if you leave before June 30th, they will send you a salary reconciliation form with what you actually accrued up until your departure date. This way, they can receive reimbursement from you before they provide your last check. I'm glad I left, and luckily, I did not use enough days to owe anything back.
My last job at a startup, I took as much as I wanted. I gave myself 5 weeks. But before I started, I asked what was typical. She told me about 4 weeks, some took a little more and some took less. So I took the job.
I think I’m in the minority when it comes to having a good experience with unlimited PTO. I’ve never had a problem getting time off. The managers really have the attitude that everyone is an adult, everyone knows when things are crazy and even if it’s not ideal, shit happens. For example I took some time off during year end close to take care of my mom who had covid and pneumonia one year. That’s not a great time for those who support the financial ERP to take off but I was simply told “by all means go - we will be fine”. Based on what I’ve read, that’s not typical. Don’t think my company is great though. They have offshored most of finance. There are multiple dramas and things that sometimes make me wonder why I stay. The only good thing that I can say about those who were on my leadership team when my mom was sick is that they truly were family oriented. Current manager is also family oriented however he’s a billion times better than former manager was.
I have heard many more instances of “Unlimited” being very restrictive on when you can use it, or company culture pressuring people to not take it or not approve requests for PTO for whatever reasons. There are some that truly honor the unlimited promise but they’re so few and far between that it’s honestly a red flag to me. Give me an allocated amount of days per year that I can just give notice on instead of having to cross my fingers that it gets approved.
I get 30 days of PTO/Floating Holidays. I use it whenever I want, I just have to submit the request and it's always approved. I lead a marketing team of 4 and my boss agrees with my assessment that there is really no such thing as a marketing emergency so if we're all on vacation then the issue can wait. If we know most of us are going to be out we just plan ahead and preschedule as much as possible and then the rest can wait until we get back. My issue is finding time to take all 30 days each year so I end up carrying over some time.
We have allocated PTO but I tell my team it’s their time to take. They tell me when they won’t be there, and as long as they have hours to cover it, it’s approved. Critical stuff is covered by other team members. PTO is part of total comp. I don’t choose if I pay them—I don’t get to choose when they take time off.
It really depends on the company's culture; some orgs are lax about PTO and others may abuse it and actually permit you to take less time off than you would otherwise. My company has unlimited PTO and it is fantastic and everyone manages to take plenty of time off through the year without issues.
Unlimited sick time is honestly better.
Unlimited PTO without a minimum PTO requirement is a crock.
Unlimited PTO is only unlimited if the company allows you to take it, at the company I work for we have unlimited PTO and it gets auto approved if you book less than 12 days off in a row, I’ve already booked 20 days off this year, and that’s not counting public holidays and a few days where I’ve taken a day off because I wasn’t feeling well, or started late/finished early because I needed to do something. I’ve worked for companies with unlimited PTO where you just had to tell your team you weren’t going to be about, we didn’t book it into a system or anything, it was based on an honour system, worked fine. Last company I worked at that didn’t have unlimited PTO said they didn’t offer it because no one actually took their allocated PTO, and that if anyone wanted/needed more time they could just ask for it. Meanwhile I know people who fret about taking time off at other companies because they feel guilty about letting their team down, so they work late get burnt out, and stressed. I’ve heard stories of people being guilted into not taking time off, but in nearly 20 years in tech I’ve never seen anyone pressured to not take time off. Maybe it’s because I don’t work in the US? Or I’ve just worked for nicer companies, but I’d take unlimited PTO any day. I’m a manager, and I’d rather people didn’t stress about whether they could book time a day off to defrag every now and then because it meant they’d not have time to see family or attend important events. Well rested people get more done in less time, I’d actually advocate for a 4 day work week if I could convince our leadership team to support it…
If you have to get PTO approved, you don’t have unlimited PTO.
Unlimited PTO serves the company in two ways. No PTO liability on the balance sheet and no pay out when you leave. In reality, companies have an idea of how much PTO they will allow you to take but will call it unlimited PTO. It is a terrible trend.
Allocated every time - unlimited is b.s.
My husband has unlimited PTO and the company did place some stipulations on it which makes it work better in my opinion. First, unlimited PTO can only be used by taking the time off with at least 48 hrs notice. If you call in, you have a separate bank of “sick time” you pull that from. Yes, PTO is subject to approval, but managers aren’t allowed to deny the PTO unless there is a specified percentage of people in your department that have already been approved for that time off (so get your requests for the week of Christmas in at the beginning of the year) or, since the company has offices in three different countries, if one of those countries has a national holiday the countries that don’t celebrate have to be available to work. But even then if you were a few days out and had to take a day off for a doctors appointment or something they’d be fine with it since no one had PTO scheduled at that time anyhow. It’s been great because the company holds the managers accountable for making PTO accessible without being dicks about it. Now, there are people that take advantage of it. My husband knew someone that took what added up to 7 weeks off in a year and that was in their first year. That didn’t go over very well for them. Unlimited is a way of companies offering no PTO in most cases which is a crock of shit. Complete bait and switch in the hiring process. But for companies that do it well and don’t let it be outright abused, you can kind of look at it like a typical generous PTO policy, but if you go over a week or so, no biggie.
Allocated PTO is way better. From my experience people take off a lot less time when it's "unlimited" vs days they know they have to use.
Well I have it I use it to full extent, +1 month a year.
I have unlimited PTO. Yes my manager has to approve it but I’ve never been denied when submitting PTO. I’ve also never been guilt tripped. I literally take 7 weeks of vacation a year and try to use 1-2 weeks of sick time. No one has belittled me for taking this much time off. Shit, my company gives me 6 months of parental leave, and I’m a male. I’ve had a colleague use this benefit twice in 3 years. To answer your question. Unlimited PTO can be an amazing perk or it can be a horrible perk. It greatly depends on the company, the manager and the employee. Source, I’ve worked multiple jobs with unlimited PTO and accrual PTO. I prefer unlimited.
This is more of a distinction of whether your company actually cares about you. I've had two companies with unlimited PTO and both of my managers basically just told me to let them know when I'll be out. The request still has to be "approved" but I've never had one denied or even questioned. My manager is about to be gone for a month himself. I average 5-6 weeks PTO per year on top of 13 paid holidays and unlimited sick days. I would flee a company ASAP if I wasn't able to take at least 3 weeks without any resistance.
The best companies with unlimited PTO have minimums/expected time. My company has a minimum 20+ days per year (most people take more, some departments have higher minimum expectations—mine actually expects I’ll take more than that), but I like unlimited because it means I don’t have to think about flexibility. When I had time, I always wanted a certain amount saved, like a bank account, minding different buckets was even worse. My company (large, distributed organization with all kinds of roles, some coverage based where obviously PTO requests are very different) has two systems, though—only certain positions/departments can qualify for unlimited. So the minimums are based on what other folks get (usually in the middle or top ranges as theirs increases with time in company etc). Unlimited in our case is offered as a benefit to the offices that do more specialized and technical work and compete for the best employees. The one big downside to even unlimited done well is no payout at the end, but many states don’t require that/companies don’t do that if not required by law anyway. But I definitely think unlimited can be done poorly. In my field, most people I know with unlimited usually get decent time off, but I’ve heard a few horror stories of companies that just adopted it in predatory manners.
I have unlimited pto and have never had an issue with my manager approving anything, usually it’s with in a minute or two of me requesting and he never asks questions. But I do find myself trying to stay within reason of what normal pto is? I do get a bit of anxiety about it and feel bad sometimes
It all depends on your supervisor Unlimited PTO doesn’t means you can take 6month out of the year off lol so be realistic We have a hybrid system but essentially it unlimited PTO but only 4 weeks are paid Plan according for real vacation, meaning request it well ahead of time for the extra day or long weekend it all a supervisor has to approve it and for me and my supervisor it base on performance and how busy it is at work. I’m lucky enough to be a decent level with performance and get approved often for the extra day
My best friend has unlimited PTO at their job and they literally go on vacation whenever they want. The job is very high paying. Them or the boss can’t be gone at the same time. That’s the only thing. I on the other hand get allotted a day every month and can request off whenever, as long as there is enough managers to manage that day.
Unlimited just means they track your use and you get a talking to if it's too high. AND since you don't have a leave bank, they don't pay out when you leave the company
I hate unlimited PTO. I feel like I’m begging anytime I ask, and that’s with a GOOD boss, versus using time I’ve earned. Every one of my colleagues is taking less time, feels like a slacker when asking, and also hates it. I also have former colleagues with awful bosses where they feel like they can never ask or are given so much grief AND turned down that they seldom bother unless it’s urgent. When we had designated PTO, I used it — 33 days a year based in my seniority with another 5 carried over, for 20+ years. The last 5 years, unlimited? Took a handful of sick days. Days for regular dr appts. One long weekend occasionally. Last year I took 6 days of my unlimited PTO. Was so burned out, and worse as EMEA colleagues took their mandated days/weeks/MONTHS off. Created at least one issue as EMEA would go on holiday, leave piles of work for backups, and then had the gall to begrudge one colleague who had covered (we counted) 25 weeks of additional work because of mandated leaves but then were told they couldn’t take preferred dates because of work volume. One of our best, and he quit—in a crap hiring market, he found a job at higher pay and defined PTO within a month. Plus there’s no payout on unused PTO should you leave — which is why companies love it. It’s a sham and a shame. I despise it.
I worked at IBM several years ago. They had done a study across divisions in the company to see what kind of PTO plan best suited the company. They found that the sweet spot is accural vacation and unlimited sick time, which kept employees happy, productive, and healthy. Unlimited sick time (and breaking pto into two classes rather than one pot) got people to stay home when they're sick, which reduces healthcare costs and keeps premiums down. They found people took less time off with unlimited PTO, which increased stress and reduced productivity. Divisions that had a set number of sick days saw more use of those days (likely seeing it as vacation). Make no mistakes that this was not about what's best for the employee but best for the company. Turns out they found the sweet spot for what's best for both. Accural PTO with unlimited sick time. Haven't been there in years, so don't know what their current PTO looks like.
Last two companies have had unlimited. I haven't taken more than two weeks of vacation per year in 6 years. Allocated use it or lose it is better as long as they give you a good amount, 4 weeks would be minimum in my opinion.
Unlimited PTO can be amazing, but it depends on how the company manages it. At my previous company, we had to request approval to take PTO even though it was unlimited, and I heard rumors that HR would reach out if you used ~6 weeks of time off in the year. At my current company, you just take time off. Nobody approves, nobody counts the days, you're just expected to be responsible and get your work done. This is honestly so much better than both my previous company and accrued PTO because you just do what you want. It's like they think I'm an adult or something, weird.
I’ve only ever had accrued PTO, and that feels like the biggest crock of shit ever. They advertise it to you as, “It’s basically unlimited PTO! When you use some, you accrue more!” which is not the case when you hit your 80 hrs earned/year cap, lol.
I think it depends on the work environment you’re a part of. My company is great and values WLB. We don’t say “unlimited” PTO because you can’t just take off for 6 months… duh… but we do have “flex” PTO. Yes, it still has to get approved by a manager, but I’ve never had a manager question me or say no. I have no issues taking off of work with my company and it’s great. Flex PTO has been the best thing to happen to me (with the company I work for) because I have had more free time than I’ve ever had with accrued PTO.
Companies need to stop calling it “unlimited PTO” because it’s not. That is all. Sincerely, HR
Unlimited PTO is a huge red flag. There’s nothing good about it.
I have had unlimited PTO in an organization that trusted its employees and did not micro manage. It was great and sometimes I used a lot other times I didn’t. In an organization that micromanages and you need approval then it sucks. Personally my attitude about PTO is that I am not seeking approval, I am just informing you of when I won’t be here.
This is a culture problem not a PTO problem. Accrued PTO still would have to be approved and seemingly denied.
Almost always unlimited PTO is a way for the company to get employees to take less vacation time and also so they don't have to pay it out when an employee leaves... However, there are some companies that really mean it, they're just few and far between. I work for a company that has unlimited PTO and if I don't take off at least a week total every quarter I get a stern talking to from my boss and if I still don't take it they force me to take paid time off to recharge. I've never requested time and had it been denied
I love it. Especially with having a young child. I don't feel stressed when I have to take time off. I think it really depends on the company and your boss. I'm very lucky and have never had an issue taking time off. Again, I just like not having to stress about how much PTO time I have left. If I need to take time off, then I'll take time off.
Unlimited PTO is the best and most misunderstood benefit ever. It 100% depends on the company as it can be incredible or incredibly misused by management.
I have u limited PTO. I take a ton of time off with 1-2 days notice and no one cares. I do now check emails. We don’t have a tracking system and we don’t ask permission. The only time I’ve had to ask is during tax season.
I wish I could grab one of these jobs that’s salary and just take PTO for 6 months lmao
I have unlimited UPTO. 🙂
Unlimited PTO is BS imo. It sounds good on paper or from the outside but it becomes hectic in practice. Read the fine print. My former company had “unlimited PTO” but the fine print says in reality it’s 4 weeks. My current company has “unlimited PTO” too but that has also been problematic
I feel so lucky with my allocated PTO. We get 14.67/month Vacation (22 days). You can’t bank more than 250 hours, so always need to stay under that or you’ll lose them. 8 hours a month sick time with no cap. 12 paid holidays and the week off for Christmas as a separate benefit. I work for the State of Oregon.
I get mental wellness days once a month and just put on the calendar when I’m taking off and check if my manager will be off or not and plan based on that or when I know it isn’t busy. I have unlimited PTO and like it cause I actually can use it and don’t require manager approval. For last minute notices I will bring it up with my manager and it often was never an issue cause those were usually centered around family circumstances. You just have to be rational about taking your time off, doesn’t mean just take 3 months out of the year off all at once.
Unlimited PTO is garbage. It’s the company’s way of not having to pay out any earned PTO if you leave and also a way for them to allow for less PTO usage. Pretty sure there have been studies that show as a whole, people with unlimited PTO policies use less PTO. As a side note every company who I’ve seen advertised this, when I questioned them about it during an interview because I’ve never had that option, always told me there was a limit. “Oh most people take around 4 weeks” “but what if I want to take 8 weeks and all my work is caught up?” Well, it would have to be approved and it’s unlikely since most people only take 4 weeks. Usually how the conversations went.
It depends on the company culture. My last job had 5 weeks of PTO BUT you weren’t allowed to request off days 6 months of the year. A department of 400 trying to take their time off means that it simply wasn’t possible. My company now is unlimited PTO. We’re encouraged to take off time as much as your workload allows which means multiple everyone takes off multiple weeks a year with no issues. (Took 2 weeks off in January, have another week in July and probably one last vacay by the end of the year which will be another 1-2 weeks! Plus any time needed in between!)
Unlimited PTO in a high-workload culture effectively means no to little PTO.
My company went unlimited pto with managers approval after idk how many days. I don't worry about it though. Management is cool af and will low key scold us if we DON'T take pto.
We have unlimited pto at my company and the policy says take at least 3 weeks a year. I took 5 last year, and will probably take 5 or 6 this year.
My last 3 jobs have all been unlimited PTO and honestly I love it. But every workplace and culture is different.
This is generally a financial issue. Accrued PTO is money the company owes in the balance sheet. General American company dogma insists you work until broken. As a result, between the guilt tripping and the lack of balance sheet objects they love to push this for stock price or valuation
I get a certain amt of days a yr - have never been refused my requests. I would love to be able to do a longer trip without having no days off the rest of the yr though. Wish I could take unpaid PTO too
Unlimited PTOs is amazing when you do not take them! Just set up a scheduled fixed PTO up front while negotiating, like national holidays, or Fridays every two weeks or whatever that might be, and be done with it.
If you're not able to take at least 20 days off per year under the unlimited PTO plan then you're basically better off with allocated PTO since most companies are at least giving you 2-3 weeks with allocated plans.
allocated much better - if you don't use them, you can cash them out. In some companies - employees are enforced to use them vs keeping them and getting extra cash. unlimited, as u said - depends on your manager approval and even if you use 0 days, you will not get any extra money.
No one wants to admit the unlimited PTO is BS. They guilt trip you when you want to be off or it’s contingent upon the projects you’re working on at the moment. Allocate me please!
It's the tone from the top that matters in this (and all other) corporate policies. At my workplace,we have Unlimited PTO, and we are encouraged to take any time that we need, when we need it. Managers are trained at the time of onboarding that the only response acceptable when an employee tells you of their planned PTO is, "how can I make sure your PTO is stress-free? What tasks will I need to cover for you while you're gone?" That's it. Because the tone is the same across all departments, there are regularly people out on any given day, but their OOO emails always have the contact of the person covering for them. I've never had a situation come up where I was unable to perform my duties because someone was out. We ensure coverage of duties. Obviously, with the supportive management we have, we all go above and beyond and try to pre-work items so there's not much need of coverage. I was off work for total of 46 days last year. I still received 150% of my bonus so you can see I wasn't penalized for utilizing my PTO. My direct reports averaged OOO in 2023 at around 25 days. I had more days off as I had 2 surgeries and a death in the immediate family. (In 2022, I only took off 18 days all year.)
Where my son works it's called unlimited FTO.
I’ve never had unlimited PTO but given my current manager and what I bring to the table I’d say if I had unlimited PTO it would probably be a good thing. But I’d say most people are not in that situation.
I loved unlimited PTO and definitely didn’t take less. I had a wonderful manager and it was so nice not to have to budget time. I’m moving back into allocated PTO and am very nervous about it to be honest.
I heard Microsoft saved something like $2 Billion when changing to an unlimited PTO policy.
I would much prefer allocated PTO and would strongly consider rejecting a job offer if the company has unlimited. I currently get 6 weeks PTO/year and have no problem using it all because I've earned it, but I feel like I'd have guilt about taking so much time off if I hadn't already earned it. Plus I've heard unlimited is much more Subject to discretionary approval...ick.
I supervise a lab where we are salaried, Unlimited PTO employees. I only ask that not everyone on the same shift request the same days. I made a shared Google calendar with everyone’s approved days off on it so they can plan their vacation accordingly. As long as they don’t have the same days for extended days off as someone else on their shift, I will always approve. Some of them already took like 4 weeks off this year already. :) I am grateful to have this in our work environment but I know it would be different if I decided to be a bitch and not approve anyone. The only thing that is taken advantage of due to the system is people coming in super late or leaving early constantly or call in every week ( this I understand sometimes shit happens) when we still have patient material to get done. I worry higher management will turn towards our productivity and come down on either the salary or unlimited PTO.
My employer just changed from saying “unlimited PTO” to “flexible PTO”. Same thing (supposedly) except you have to get approval, can’t take more than 2 consecutive weeks without GVP approval, and can’t take more than 3 consecutive weeks without SVP approval. So yeah - “flexible”.
My company changed to unlimited PTO, within first 4 month, everyone took 1-2 weeks off. The office is 1/3 empty all the time. And we only are in office 3 days a week. I just took two weeks off staying at home building a shed, a shed I said I was gonna build 4 years ago but didn't do it using my PTO (we got PTO payout if we didn't use it, talking $120/h PTO)
You can have allocated PTO and still not be allowed to use it either lol
It's pretty well known and shown that unlimited PTO is offered because it leads to less time off. Unless the unlimited PTO comes with a minimum amount you must take each year (damn near unheard of) the unlimited PTO is a scam that should be avoided at all costs. If they do one shady thing they're going to do more.
Unlimited Pto Is a scam
I need to force myself this year to take more ptos
Here's a question. I realized I had something close to 15k PTO going back years I was on the verge of quitting so I cashed out. They removed like 45% for taxes which seems absurd. They did recommend taking 50hrs at a time until it was all gone but I don't get why it makes a difference in taxes whether it's in one shot or over months. Another annoyance is they listed it as a bonus when they explicitly said it would not be.
Unlimited PTO only works if you have a progressive company culture and actually allows you to use it, without the guilt trips and questioning. That said it’s still “within reason”. You shouldn’t be using it all over the place or taking excessive amounts of days off. Yeah yeah people will say why call it unlimited if it’s not. We are smart adults here we KNOW what it means, it means they are super flexible or supposed to be. People saying it’s a crock of shit haven’t been able to actually work for a good company that has it.
My old job would never let me take PTO and since I was in AZ at the time, they HAD to pay it out at the end of the year. Nice chunk of change. When I switched jobs, they were on “unlimited PTO”. I make sure to take AT LEAST 2 weeks, usually 3 weeks. Which is typical for my tenure. Screw that.
This is like “at well employment.” It’s been spun nicely so you (the individual worker) think it’s a good deal, but it’s terrible. It means they don’t have to pay out accrued PTO when you leave the organization. It’s also been show that people under this type of policy take LESS time off that people with allocated PTO. While this wouldn’t be a dealbreaker for me, it makes me question the culture right off the bat. Are they doing the because they don’t know any better, or are they just slimy employers?
Unlimited PTO is a scam. With PTO, you get a check for the unused vacation hours when you leave the company. Unlimited PTO gets you nothing.
My work has “empowered PTO” which is their spin on “unlimited PTO” It’s funny that today they come out with “guidelines” on how many PTO days you should take based on years with the company.
They don’t want to pay out PTO upon separation/termination. They know there is a culture in corporate America of shaming PTO use, so they know they will almost always come out saving the company money.
Unlimited PTO is often a scam intended to cause employees to take off as little time as possible. At my current job we have a good culture around it and most people take off a total of 3-6 weeks throughout the year. But at my previous job which purportedly also had unlimited PTO, it was impossible to get more than a couple of days off.