You’re reading Life-Work Balance, a series aiming to redirect our total devotion to work into prioritising our personal lives.
Picture the scene. You’ve been feeling burned out lately, you need a break, a three-day weekend, maybe. Or perhaps even the whole week off work. Without doing any arithmetics, and figuring out much residual annual leave you have, you simply ask your boss if it’s alright you take some time off. Your paid time off is limitless.
Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, in some cases, it is.
Unlimited paid time off is an incentive many companies are bringing forth, in an attempt to curb the Great Resignation plaguing the professional world in the pandemic.
Netflix, LinkedIn and EventBrite are some of the companies enticing employees with the offer. And they’re not the only ones. Job website Indeed.co.uk reported that since 2017, the number of vacancies boasting unlimited holiday increased by 148%.
In theory, the concept allows people to take off as much time as they want – with companies adding on some stipulations. For example, they may ask you don’t take three weeks in a row, or you refrain from absences during important periods.
In reality though, limitless annual leave can leave people in precarious positions – how much time is too much time, for example? And what happens if you don’t take it? Or if you leave a job?
Here in the UK our statutory holiday entitlement is more generous than the U.S - while the standard here is 25 days, across the Atlantic, it’s 15 days.
But interestingly, among those who were offered unlimited PTO, one study showed, that people took fewer days off than those with a set number. The study by HR brand Namely found that the limitless cohort took an average of 13 vacation days, compared to the full 15 of their fixed PTO counterparts.
And let’s also not forget, once you resign from a job, you may have accrued days off, which are rightfully yours to take. But under an unlimited model, no such requirements exist so that means managers can effectively reject your requests to take a leave of absence leading up to your last day.
Plus, will everyone take it equally? “There may be busy teams with some team members taking a high number of days leave per year,” says Claire Williams, chief people officer at HR software provider CIPHR, “while others are taking far fewer days, with the latter group covering the workload for their absent colleagues.”
So, who has these policies in place and how do they feel about it?
For parents, this has been a lifesaver. Single dad-of-four Glen Ocsko, 41, who is a manager at a tech company, from Kent, says this model has revolutionised his schedule.
“I wouldn’t be able to live my life without it,” he tells us. “Until I joined this company I faced the struggle of knowing I didn’t have enough annual leave to even cover the school holidays. I don’t have extensive support networks, so I would stress and worry about finding childcare arrangements, ferrying them across the country to stay with relatives for a few days and constantly feeling mentally exhausted.
“It also meant I never had any time for myself - I couldn’t just book even a long weekend and go away, as I had to save all my annual leave for my time with the kids. Now, however, I’m able to cope. I can take the time off I need, and sometimes even take time off that I want, too.”
The only downside, he adds, is that you end up not valuing your time off as much. When you have only a finite number of days off they become precious, and you guard them jealously, he says. You plan them in and, once booked, they’re sacrosanct. But ultimately, he wouldn’t change the current system.
“I know I’m a much better parent because of it, so my work has really benefitted my real passion!”
But it hasn’t worked out for everyone. Clara*, who lives in the North Island of New Zealand, working for a transport and delivery company, says unlimited leave means people can take advantage of it sometimes.
Her company offers unlimited Covid leave – meaning people can take off as much sick leave as they want. But this means some have abused it.
“So I’ve been called off annual leave early to go back into work because someone who just recently ‘had Covid’ has it again a week later. Either it’s a scientific miracle or giving everyone at work unlimited Covid leave was a bad idea,” she says.
“The difficulty is that everyone’s being so cautious about Covid that the company doesn’t want to be seen questioning these kind of things, but it means some abuse it and the rest of us have to pick up the slack.”
It seems there are pros and cons to this idea. But how can we take the drawbacks and remedy it to utilise the freedom and increased wellbeing that comes with unlimited PTO?
Anita*, an accounts director at a marketing firm, says it works if the company has figured out ways around the flaws.
She tells HuffPost UK: “I get unlimited paid time off, but the only caveat is we can’t take more than two weeks at a time and we have to take a minimum of 25 days at least per year.
“I love it as it’s given me more flexibility to take time off during school holidays without worry about using up all my annual leave or not having enough. My company has a people-first attitude so it’s encouraged to take time off even if you’re not going on holiday.”
This way, people still have a minimum requirement – which they can cash in when they leave – and they get a break, all the while having endless days to take off throughout the year.
So, how can we feel more empowered to talk to our bosses about possibly utilising this method, while addressing its disadvantages?
Aliza Sweiry, UK managing director for a large recruiting company, Aquent, says the cons don’t mean we have to discard such ideas.
She tells HuffPost: “It’s great if companies want to offer this and it sounds like a great benefit in theory, but it is always a good idea to ask lots of questions and find out how the policy really works in practice at the organisation.
“Employees might want to ask, what is the average number of days employees are taking? How does the work get covered when people are off? How do the employees feel about having unlimited PTO? Do they see it as a huge benefit rather than an allocated number of holiday day allowance?
“The working world has changed and has become more flexible than ever before. Employees should embrace that and if they want to ask about unlimited PTO, they should.”
Life-Work Balance questions the status quo of work culture, its mental and physical impacts, and radically reimagines how we can change it to work for us.