This is in stark contrast to the trend of lumping both sick time and time off into a single limited “PTO” bucket. Having an unlimited budget of time off means you don’t have to worry about “banking” time in case you get sick.
Those policies are fucked-up. It's Enron-style accounting, a way for a company to say, "we offer 15 days off" while lying through its fucking teeth. Counting sick days against vacation is evil. By effectively forcing people to come into work when ill and making the whole office sick, they're fucking with my health (and everyone's, most of all the people who are already sick and deserve rest).
Companies that have that pooled "PTO" bucket end up with people getting more colds because sick people come in to work. So, even though people are in the office more days, nothing gets done all winter. Like most mean-spirited HR policies, the bulk effect on productivity is negative, but it enables HR douches to look like they're saving money while externalizing costs to the rest of the company.
Whoever came up with that "innovation" deserves to be sold into Roose Bolton's captivity.
If unseen opportunities or obligations come up – invited to speak abroad?
Companies that expect people to count conferences against vacation time should be burned to the ground. (Figuratively speaking, of course, or literally but only at 2:30 am when no one is in the building.) Professional development is part of the fucking job, assholes. If you're a scrappy startup and can't pay for conferences, that's one thing. Making people take vacation to go is just mean-spirited and horrible.
What there should be is:
(1) two week mandatory vacation, every year. Banks have this, to prevent repeats of the SocGen disaster.
(2) 4 weeks vacation. That should establish 4 weeks as "the norm". If people need more, they can take time unpaid. If they use a little less, they can carry it over.
(3) sick time unlimited. If you suspect abuse, ask for a damn doctor's note.
(4) no vacation penalty for conferences related to the job.
(5) no stigma against unpaid leave, which should be unlimited as long as it doesn't directly hurt the company. (Obviously, the CEO can't take 3 months off without pay.)
If there's no stigma against unpaid leave, why is (2), the 4-week allocation, so important? First, because in reality, unpaid leave will always carry some stigma. So it's better to set the "official" PTO at 4 weeks, rather than at 2 while paying 4% more. Second, because I don't think there's any benefit to the company in someone working 50 vs. 48 weeks per year and so it doesn't deserve to be compensated as a general principle. (I'm all for people being paid back for unused vacation when they leave, but I think that people should be discouraged from taking less than 4 weeks off per year.)
What you described is pretty close to what the labor code guarantees in European countries, only in EU it's a bit stronger. If an employee takes too little vacation time the employer gets fined, period. This is nice - I don't want to compete against workaholics or those easily pressured into "voluntarily" working with no vacation.
Wow... In the EU, 4 weeks is the legal minimum paid time off for all workers. Some countries (eg Germany) set higher limits (of 6 weeks). If you don't use up your paid time off then the company has to pay you. And this applies to all workers, from developers to people working in a bar.
The holidays is one of the reasons I wouldn't want work on USA
Those policies are fucked-up. It's Enron-style accounting, a way for a company to say, "we offer 15 days off" while lying through its fucking teeth. Counting sick days against vacation is evil. By effectively forcing people to come into work when ill and making the whole office sick, they're fucking with my health (and everyone's, most of all the people who are already sick and deserve rest).
Companies that have that pooled "PTO" bucket end up with people getting more colds because sick people come in to work. So, even though people are in the office more days, nothing gets done all winter. Like most mean-spirited HR policies, the bulk effect on productivity is negative, but it enables HR douches to look like they're saving money while externalizing costs to the rest of the company.
Whoever came up with that "innovation" deserves to be sold into Roose Bolton's captivity.
If unseen opportunities or obligations come up – invited to speak abroad?
Companies that expect people to count conferences against vacation time should be burned to the ground. (Figuratively speaking, of course, or literally but only at 2:30 am when no one is in the building.) Professional development is part of the fucking job, assholes. If you're a scrappy startup and can't pay for conferences, that's one thing. Making people take vacation to go is just mean-spirited and horrible.
What there should be is:
(1) two week mandatory vacation, every year. Banks have this, to prevent repeats of the SocGen disaster.
(2) 4 weeks vacation. That should establish 4 weeks as "the norm". If people need more, they can take time unpaid. If they use a little less, they can carry it over.
(3) sick time unlimited. If you suspect abuse, ask for a damn doctor's note.
(4) no vacation penalty for conferences related to the job.
(5) no stigma against unpaid leave, which should be unlimited as long as it doesn't directly hurt the company. (Obviously, the CEO can't take 3 months off without pay.)
If there's no stigma against unpaid leave, why is (2), the 4-week allocation, so important? First, because in reality, unpaid leave will always carry some stigma. So it's better to set the "official" PTO at 4 weeks, rather than at 2 while paying 4% more. Second, because I don't think there's any benefit to the company in someone working 50 vs. 48 weeks per year and so it doesn't deserve to be compensated as a general principle. (I'm all for people being paid back for unused vacation when they leave, but I think that people should be discouraged from taking less than 4 weeks off per year.)