What does "as long as you're getting your work done" mean? There's no point in the year when nobody would be happier if you got something done sooner. There's never a time when taking vacation doesn't mean that some work you might have done doesn't get pushed to somebody else, or never done. The point of vacation is that you should be able to relax, but if you're worrying that you're screwing the company by not getting your work done, how can you relax?

Unlimited vacation sounds nice, but in practice it doesn't work.

An example from California's vacation faq (http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/faq_vacation.htm):

"For example, an employee who is entitled to three weeks of annual vacation (15 work days entitlement per year x 8 hours/day = 120 hours vacation entitlement per year) who quits on August 7, 2002 (the 219th day of the year) without having taken any vacation in 2002, who has no vacation carry-over from prior years, and whose final rate of pay is $13.00 per hour, would be entitled to $936.00 vacation pay upon separation"

I honestly think every responsible and competent adult (and I purposefully leave those terms imprecise) should have no vacation policy. Vacation should be a fact of life: take it when you need it, don't take it when you can't, and work as much as you need to to do a good job (again, imprecise).

In my case, I would probably not benefit dollar for dollar from an unlimited vacation policy. I would either take less vacation or not benefit from the payouts. That's not to say that unlimited vacation is a bad policy. It might be a great policy, and I'm sure it depends on the details of how it is implemented and the culture of the company where it is implemented; however, it is certainly possible that the practical outcome is more of a net benefit for the company rather than the employees.

Since many startups these days are advertising unlimited vacation, I'd love to hear from both founders and employees about some of the practical ways in which this policy plays out.

At a previous startup, we had pretty much unlimited vacation time, and the result was that no one took any. So clearly this doesn't work unless you make a point of encouraging people to actually take advantage. We thought about setting a minimum vacation policy where you have to take at least a certain amount, but some people didn't like the idea of being forced to take vacation.

Since I haven't taken any significant vacation since I started (6 months ago), I recently made a deal with Jason (the CEO) that I need to plan a significant vacation by the end of February. Suggestions welcome...

Also, freedom from incompatible work environments would be nice. It is way too noisy where I work. At the very least they should provide nice ($300-400) noise cancellation headphones without me having to beg.

By law we get 5 weeks of vacation a year. My employer throws in an extra week as a perk, but that week gets used last, and can't roll over - basically use all 6 weeks or lose one. And then you can roll over up to 2 weeks if you don't use it all. So in practice, this means that you'll take at least 3 weeks, and almost everyone takes the full 6 weeks, unless they're planning something for the next year and know that they'll want an extra two weeks.

With that said, when unlimited vacation time is implemented well, it can be amazing for both the company and employees for a number of reasons:

1) You don't worry as much about things like sick days or one-off PTO. Work doesn't always follow a 9-5 schedule, so if you end up working 60 hours in four days, you can just take Friday off - it feels like less of a big deal if you don't have to worry about 'losing a day.'

2) Do you need to leave early to make a flight? Don't worry about entering it into the system, just do it.

3) If people are legitimately sick, they won't come to the office and infect everyone out of fear of 'using a sick day.'

4) Holidays get a lot easier. Do you not mind working between Christmas and New Years, but want to take time off for Eid/Rosh Hashanah/Diwali/Festivus/whatever? All of a sudden it's not a big deal. It's also great for parents, who don't have to worry as much about child care if their kids have random day off of school.

5) You can take a 'big trip' without losing all your days. The consecutive days, rather than the one-off long weekends, are the bigger issue for a company. I've actually found it easier to take a long trip when I didn't have to worry about losing all my days.

Companies are nervous about this arrangement because they worry employees will abuse it, but again, that's a management issue. You have unlimited vacation time as long as you are getting your work done. If you're taking so much time the work isn't getting done, then the issue isn't vacation time, it's a performance problem, the same as if you showed up every day and just played on facebook.

Because the management piece of it is so important, there are also things companies can do to make a system like this work better:

1) Create a mandatory 'real vacation' by requiring employees to take at least a week off, in a row, once a year. If employees feel like they can never take time off, they'll get burnt out and you'll lose great people. If you make a vacation mandatory, people will feel more comfortable taking the time, and the company will reap the rewards of happier, clearer thinking people. Plus, many people, especially in creative or professional jobs, get inspired when they're able to step away from the day to day for a little bit.

2) Make telecommuting easy, so that employees can still check in even if they're not in the office. Sometimes, people only really need a half day, but don't mind sitting on e-mail in the morning. Or they have their kids around all day and would love to get the opportunity to talk to some adults. The important thing here is to be flexible, and make sure that telecommuting doesn't become "we can make you work wherever, whenever, even on vacation."

3) Have real performance management. This isn't about annual reviews, it's about managers that provide ongoing, regular feedback about how employees are doing against the company's goals, help them understand when they're falling short, and work non-performers out of the organization. Top performers will get turned off by anyone abusing the policy, even more than management.

This worked amazingly well. It was one of the very few things we did right.

The "You get as much vacation as you want" seems to be going that direction too. The early adopters were enlightened, thinking, "The value of showing trust to an engineer will more than pay for the rare abuse." It does save money, and now the cost cutters are seeing it too.

I've worked in several places where you get a month of vacation, and never get to use it all because you're too busy. Changing that to unlimited does not help much.

Some things that do help: - Mandate everyone takes a 2 week continuous vacation. This is done by banks for compliance reasons. (Harder to hide fraud if you're out 2 weeks in a row.) It is very beneficial, because this forces you to take at least 2 weeks of your allocated 4. - Allow paid sabbaticals. "After X years, you can take 2X weeks off for a continuous sabbatical that we pay for, and we'll pick up half of any coursework or travel costs." - Lead by example. This is VERY tough, because most good leaders like to lead by example showing that they're not above working hard. They can also lead by example taking their vacation.

In the end, none of this is altruistic. It's a way to keep talent motivated and feeling valued when they have lots of options. If you stiff a good engineer 2 weeks of vacation, they can always make it up by taking 2 weeks off before starting another job. :-)

My office manager, whose main house was a couple hours outside NYC, took 3 and 4 day weekends at the slightest pretext, e.g. some Jewish holidays I've never heard of before or since. Once she even got it up to 5 days. On the other hand, the only time she took a solid week off was when I insisted she fly to her estranged mother's funeral. And she didn't get sick much.

My #2 office guy was Catholic, and didn't need the Jewish holidays. About the only time they overlapped on a day I wanted to be open was for Good Friday (which of course usually falls during Passover).

It all worked out fine.

Similarly, both there and especially in the Boston area where people drove to work, my policy was "Good heavens, don't start at 9:00 am and fight the worst of rush hour unless you really want to!" Some chose 8:00 am, some 10:00 am. I had more coverage, and it was all good.

My takeaway is to only work for companies where you already know somebody outside of work. The problem is that it's really hard to get a sense of a company's culture during the interview process, so unless you have a friend who's willing to tell the truth you can easily be deceived. I know some companies that claimed to have 40 hour work weeks but people frequently came in on weekends. More surprisingly, I knew some companies where they claimed to be workaholics but generally held 9-5 hours.

So find someone you trust to tell you the raw truth about the company-not the whitewashed sales pitch. "2 weeks of official vacation, but people actually take 5" is a lot better than "unlimited vacation, but no one takes any."

The unwritten rule seems to be "you're working really hard to get a featured shipped, if you need extra vacation to decompress after, feel free".

Great idea, but I would argue a week isn't enough. Require employees to take a minimum 2 or 3 weeks off per year, not necessarily contiguously.

Although, I can also see this as a bad thing. It might create the impression in people's mind that "the company thinks that X weeks is the right amount for everyone to take off", which might make people hesitant to take more, even if doing so could greatly benefit their state of mind.

After being on it for a year, I would prefer to go back to the 'guaranteed 12 days a year'

I'm not from the USA, so this might be a cultural thing or things just work different where I'm from.

Also, since I'm moving there, does this apply to the UK?