In many parts of Europe, it’s common for workers to take off weeks at a time, especially during the summer. Envious Americans say it’s time for the U.S. to follow suit.
Some 66% of U.S. workers say companies should adopt extended vacation policies, like a month off in August, in their workplaces, according to a Morning Consult survey of 1,047 U.S. adults.
I know lots of us people with “unlimited time off” type contracts. No one ever takes more than a week because they are afraid that their bosses wouldnt like it.
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I…do not know what’s being said here.
In Germany, you get at least 28 days of holidays per year. Company even has to budget for them, so if you don’t take them, it creates a huge headache for them in regards to finalizing their yearly results because they might have to keep money back. Sorry, I don’t have the correct economical term, in German it is a Rückstellung. So there is a very high insentive to get all of your people to take their holidays, because otherwise it’s a pain in the ass and will delay everything.
Does Germany also have a maximum amount of days an employee can save before they are legally required to take them out?
My company has this and just about everyone I work with utilizes the unlimited time off. Most people land in the 5-6 weeks of vacation a year + sick + personal business + holidays.
There are the few who make work their hobby too, but you can’t do anything for those people IMO
What is the difference to vacation and personal days?
Attending funerals, births etc aren’t really holidays
Exactly, we get days off for this on top
Oh, we have bereavement and paternity/maternity leave.
I don’t know about that. Depends on who died…
Depends on where you live, the two European countries that I’ve lived and worked in my employers would allow additional leave for funerals of aunts, uncles, cousins and some even allowed for the death of a pet.
A lot of the time the difference is in how much notice you need to give work before taking the time off.
Sometimes they are treated different for expirations as well. For example, accrued vacation time usually has to be paid if you leave, might have some or all rollover to the be next year, while other types of time off are more likely use it or lose it
Personal business is for things that need to be done touring business hours but aren’t vacation. Things like doctors appointments, meeting a service person to fix something at your home, or some delivery that requires you be home. Those kind of things
Research shows that people with unlimited time off take fewer days than people with set amount of time off.
I am definitely an outlier here. We have unlimited PTO and 98% of our workforce is in the US so most people never take more than three or four days at a time. And often end up at the end of the year having taken less PTO than they would have as a regular hourly worker.
But not me… I’ll take 3 weeks at a time if I have plans. They can fire me if they want. I have a nice 3 months worth of severance written into my contract if they are the ones who terminate it.
That would give me a month more of break and then 2 months to find a job.
I know this isn’t possible for everyone. But if more people stood up for themselves, even within the confines of these contracts, we would all be better off as management and executive get used to it over time.
I have unlimited PTO, and it’s a total scam. I’m a contractor, and contracts have required hours within required time-frames. These time-frames don’t have margin for taking off a couple weeks at a time. Any time you take off, has to be made up, so it’s not really time off
I’ve been told that generally, this is so the company doesn’t have to pay you back for unused PTO if you leave the company.
I can’t vouch for this as true, but it makes sense.
It can be to limit how much vacation time the company has to pay out on separation, or to limit how much “liability” for vacation pay they have on the books at any given time. If your employees get 5 days of vacation a year, use it or lose it, you don’t have to deal with someone who (the horror!) has built up 2 weeks and wants to use it all at once.
There are no state or federal laws that give employees a right to paid vacation time. Only 10 states require the company to pay out unused vacation time when you leave (CA, CO, IL, IN, LA, MA, ME, ND, NE, RI). In most of those states, use it or lose it policies are illegal. Everywhere else, the company policy basically decides if it gets paid out or not.
That is why time off is supposed to be mandatory
If I’m stuck in the USA, I’m gonna find an unlimited time of job and actually use that benefit like Europeans. Fuck American work culture.
I’m sure you’ll keep that job for several months. The other part of American “work culture” is how quickly and easily we can lose that job. Be happy that you have some worker protection
If you get such a contract, make sure to read it closely. I had it once, phrased more like “there is no policy restricting time off”. It’s really up to your manager and it means there is an invisible limit that may be different for everyone, you won’t know about until you hit it.
In my case, I had a good manager, but sure enough, got dinged after taking off two weeks in the year (the worst part was no actual vacation but individual days off for kid’s appointments). I much prefer an actual limit, because then you can take it
Yeah because it’s a fucking scam who’s primary purpose is to eliminate pto liability from their accounting. It’s the equivalent of the 401k scam that eliminated corporate pension plans as a standard benefit.
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For some that’s true.
But we undergo a great deal of brainwashing. Unions are demonized, billionaires lionized, puritanical (insane) work ethic lauded, anything less than that vilified, etc.
Attempts at unionization are aggressively subverted and crushed by large corpos.
And most people are given just enough to not want to risk it all to get a bit more.
It will be a while, yet, before US culture shifts enough that more people side with unions, join unions, and build critical mass. Although, younger generations seem to be more aware of the anti-labor BS more than my gen (x) was at a similar age.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_comparisons_of_trade_unions