so discipline those that abuse it? It’s really a symptom of not engaging with your workforce on a realistic level. Many non-American countries deal with it adequately. In the UK your sick days don’t come out of your vacation, and if you need more than a week off you have to get a doctor’s note.
And whether that’s a good system comes down to the quality of your immediate leadership. PTO gives you essentially a right to use time off for whatever you need, whereas discretionary time off comes down to the discretion of your manager. Some prefer the guarantee over a promise.
I’d argue that “you can use it however you want” is pissing on my boots and telling me it’s raining.
I want to use my vacation for vacation, as it’s vacation. I don’t want to use my vacation for being sick. If it is truly what I want that really matters, then shouldn’t that be respected?
PTO isn’t vacation though, it’s “Personal Time Off,” which is a combination of sick leave and vacation time.
If you compare two roles, one with separate vacation and sick leave and the other with combined PTO, the PTO will be higher than the vacation, but lower than the combined total time off. You lose a little for that flexibility, but there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to use all of the sick leave.
I prefer PTO because I don’t get sick all that often, and my company allows me to WFH when sick (it’s more flexible than that). My dad had separate sick leave and vacation, and he never used up his sick leave so a lot of it would be wasted.
I should just be able to call in sick if I’m sick. Why even track it?
Because people will abuse it, which sucks. And if you go with an unlimited PTO option, there’s often a lot of cultural pressure to not take PTO.
so discipline those that abuse it? It’s really a symptom of not engaging with your workforce on a realistic level. Many non-American countries deal with it adequately. In the UK your sick days don’t come out of your vacation, and if you need more than a week off you have to get a doctor’s note.
And whether that’s a good system comes down to the quality of your immediate leadership. PTO gives you essentially a right to use time off for whatever you need, whereas discretionary time off comes down to the discretion of your manager. Some prefer the guarantee over a promise.
I’d argue that “you can use it however you want” is pissing on my boots and telling me it’s raining.
I want to use my vacation for vacation, as it’s vacation. I don’t want to use my vacation for being sick. If it is truly what I want that really matters, then shouldn’t that be respected?
PTO isn’t vacation though, it’s “Personal Time Off,” which is a combination of sick leave and vacation time.
If you compare two roles, one with separate vacation and sick leave and the other with combined PTO, the PTO will be higher than the vacation, but lower than the combined total time off. You lose a little for that flexibility, but there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to use all of the sick leave.
I prefer PTO because I don’t get sick all that often, and my company allows me to WFH when sick (it’s more flexible than that). My dad had separate sick leave and vacation, and he never used up his sick leave so a lot of it would be wasted.