I believe Unlimited PTO is a scam and here’s why (my opinion and experience with two companies):
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It’s for the company’s financial benefit. They don’t have to pay you out if the fire you and you can’t carry over vacation year to year.
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The “two weeks” expectation is still largely the baseline status quo (looking at you, boomers) so once you’re over that – you start getting looked at for abusing it. Do you really need that Friday off? You’ve already taken 2 weeks this year.
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All vacation is taken by YOU not given by the company. By taking it from the zero they’ve given you, you are creating the image of wanting time away, not using what’s given so in my experience, that’s been viewed as selfish and not “a team player”
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Since it’s not equally given, it can and will absolutely be looked at as a performance metric and a promotion consideration. Why would I promote 6 week vacation taker over 1.5 week taker if all other things are similar?
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Because you can take it “whenever” there’s an increased expectation to be available during the PTO. Almost every single person, especially management answered messages during PTO in my company of 1000 people.
Just my experience. I am a fan of structured, assigned PTO and man, I love me some time off.