Not using your vacation days at work? You’re not alone.
Unlimited paid vacation has become the perk du jour among hot startups and old-school companies alike — Netflix, Eventbrite and now even General Electric are among the employers offering it. But a flurry of recent headlines have dismissed the benefit as a cheap recruiting tool, a way to take financial liabilities off the books, and something that — in the end — employees don’t even actually use.
This is one side of the story, and a good caution for companies who want to get this right.
Buildium initiated unlimited vacation back in 2011, before this was a familiar concept in the employment market. And while we certainly don’t have it all figured out, we’ve learned a few things about ensuring that people actually use this benefit in the process.
1. Acknowledge the deep barriers to taking time off
It’s easy to talk about having a culture that values work-life balance, but offering unlimited paid time off was a way for us to try to walk the walk. It’s the same reason we also have a liberal work-from-home policy and flexible hours — being rested, spending time with family and recharging matters. Especially in high-growth companies, furious sprints of activity need to be offset with downtime. Empower your corporate athletes to take time to recover, and the work will get done.
But, as nice as unlimited vacation sounds, we’ve seen there are some deeply ingrained barriers against using it. The culture of achievement runs deep, and for all the talk in corporate circles about work-life balance, a butts-in-seats mentality still prevails. One-third of U.S. employees work more than 45 hours a week (9.7 million work more than 60 hours). And Americans leave some 658 million vacation days unused every year.
We’re not exempt. Though our company average is 3.4 weeks of paid time off a year, last year 38 percent of our employees took fewer than three weeks and 21 percent took fewer than two weeks. (For perspective, the average vacation allotment for American workers is 10 days.) So it’s safe to say we’ve still got work to do to. Above all, unlimited vacation is not a “set-it-and-forget-it” policy. To work, it requires a plan.
2. Set the tone and nudge as needed
For starters, it’s critical to send the message from senior leadership that taking time off is encouraged and even expected. As corporate values go, “self-care” has never exactly ranked highly in the business world, which is a shame. (Imagine if pro athletes neglected rest and recovery time.) I find it translates to a lack of self-awareness and EQ among employees, who sometimes don’t recognize when they genuinely need time off in order to be at their best.
How do you address that? On one level, it’s about sending out reminder emails and sharing holiday stories in all-hands meetings. But deeper still, it requires leaders and staff alike to respect and even defend each others’ vacation boundaries. The key message: “This matters to the health of the company, and we’re going to support you in taking time off.” Of course, you can also show this by example. I take a family holiday every summer and winter. If the company can survive without its CEO for a week or two, it should be able to survive without other roles, too.
And sometimes, managers have to give employees a deliberate nudge to make it happen, setting up regular check ins and helping them plan coverage. I know this from firsthand experience. At a previous company, I had never taken off more than a week at a time until our CEO came to me and literally said, “I don’t want to see you for two weeks.” She knew I was getting burned out and needed to seriously disconnect. Those two weeks changed how I look at the purpose of vacation forever.
Other companies have wrestled with this challenge, as well, and found creative fixes. Social media platform Buffer embraced a “minimum vacation” policy to make sure its employees were actually getting out of the office. O2E, the company behind the 1–800-GOT-JUNK? brand, implements a rigorous vacation-support system. Everyone in the company has a pre-assigned backup to take over projects, ensuring that they can actually get away and disconnect from work while on vacation.
3. Have employees “own” their time off
Having said all this, getting time off right is obviously a two-way street. While the leadership team can set a culture that encourages self-care, employees have responsibilities, too. It’s critical to share dates with managers in advance, especially for extended holidays. Having a coverage plan to ensure core responsibilities are picked up is equally important. Above all, there’s an expectation to use time off with empathy and intelligence, avoiding long vacations during critical stretches like product launches, for instance, when colleagues might be left shorthanded.
To be honest, our employees rarely need reminding on these points. Unlimited paid time off, contrary to expectations, is rarely if ever taken advantage of.
Then there’s the million-dollar question: How much of your “unlimited” vacation should you really use in a given year? To me, this is a deeply personal matter. There’s no optimal number of weeks or easy rule of thumb. Instead, it’s about recognizing when batteries are low and it’s time to recharge — about acknowledging those times when taking time off may be far better for you, and the company, than soldiering on.
At the end of the day, having an unlimited or generous vacation policy is far from an empty recruiting hack. It’s an acknowledgement of the unique stresses and unpredictability of contemporary work life and a demonstration of genuine concern for the people you work alongside. And the return on that is equally profound — commitment, loyalty, employees who love their job and do it better year after year, for whom the grass is not always greener elsewhere. As a leader, I’m surrounded by focused, passionate, long-tenured employees who prove every day that building a company that lasts starts with a sustainable culture.
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