The following is a transcript of our podcast conversation with Eliza Polly and Seth Sherrin. You can listen to the full episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Sarah Wilkins
Hello and welcome to Humans Beyond Resources, an HR podcast by Reverb where we cover topics from culture to compliance. Reverb believes that every decision a leader makes reverberates throughout the organization. From hiring your first employee to training your entire workforce. We believe in building healthy, inclusive culture settings. Engage your team. I’m your host, Sarah Wilkins. Welcome to episode six of Humans Beyond Resources. Today we are discussing PTO policies, and particularly unlimited PTO, and the recent criticism on how it leads to taking less time off. To dig into this deeper and discuss some best practices for unlimited PTO or other alternatives that lead to a healthy culture where people take time off. I have Eliza Polly and Seth Sherrin. Both people operations consultants. Welcome, Eliza and Seth. I’m looking forward to this discussion.
Seth Sherrin
Great to be here.
Sarah Wilkins
Wonderful. So, to start off, this may seem like a silly question, but how would you describe unlimited PTO?
Seth Sherrin
Yeah, so, I mean, it’s kind of that what it is. So it’s PTO where there’s kind of a bottomless bucket, right. Typically, you’ve known traditional company, oh, you get two weeks off in a year. Well, this kind of eliminates that guardrail to say, if you ask for it, you don’t have this bucket of time. It’s this seemingly endless bucket.
Eliza Polly
I agree with that. I also think it’s evolved over time, and unlimited has become a word that people aren’t super comfortable with from a company perspective. But I think in general, it means to people that you aren’t constrained by a policy that would prevent you from taking time off if you needed to at a really high level. I think that’s what people think of it as yes.
Sarah Wilkins
The intention behind it. I have terminology changed a little bit with a large tech company using the word discretionary time off instead of unlimited, when in essence, it’s kind of describing what you’re just describing.
Eliza Polly
Yeah. I have one client who’s using discretionary and I have others who are calling it unmanaged. For business reasons.
Sarah Wilkins
For business reasons, yeah. And so the intent behind unlimited PTO is really to provide flexibility and not have such strict guardrails, if you will, on the total number of days someone could take off in a year. But giving them the flexibility to take the time that they need, is that kind of the intent behind it?
Seth Sherrin
That was the original the original intent, yeah.
Sarah Wilkins
So as you both know, this is a very popular and competitive perk in a lot of our tech and startup clients. But we’ve seen lots of articles or some different studies recently where it’s led to people taking maybe too little time off. So why do you think that is? This policy was intended to be really helpful and to give people the flexibility and the support to take time off, but it’s seeming like some people aren’t taking time off now because of it.
Eliza Polly
From my perspective, I think it’s completely a reflection of the culture that’s been established, there’s really no other benefit, I would argue that is reflective of what your leadership culture is already in place. I think sometimes putting in policies like this can be aspirational, but it’s not really who you are in the moment. And if leadership isn’t willing to walk the talk, not only for themselves to actually take the vacation, but if they unfortunately, sometimes engage in behavior where they give you the feeling that there’s consequences if you take vacation, that you somehow will be left out of interesting projects, that there’ll be some thing that you’ll feel where it wasn’t genuinely accepted that you were taking the time off. And I think if that is already the set up of the culture over time, it’s just natural that people will feel like taking and asking for more time off is a bad thing. And I think that’s one of the main reasons why you’ve seen it start to become something that people are more scared of than if it had actually been accrued and given to them as kind of a reward for their service. That’s my perspective.
Seth Sherrin
I think that’s really interesting. I think my vision into that too, my insight into that is I think there’s a lot of psychology that kind of goes into it as well. It’s like you go from this scarcity mindset to this like, oh, it’s this giant, I don’t have a bucket. When you have a limited, like, hey, you have this much so many hours in a year, you’ve got something to do math on, right? Well, I can take let me take these two days and these two days, these two weeks off, and I’m going to plan this trip. And you’re approaching it through a scarcity mindset of, well, I only have so much, so if I need to, I can plan it and that kind of way. Whereas, oh, I wish I could take that vacation. It’d be nice to take that vacation. I could take it if I wanted to. I don’t have a number in my brain that I’m having to work around. It’s just this amorphous thing. And so a lot of the times you see, they just won’t ask for it or they just keep putting it off, probably to the point of, well, if I do, could I miss out on projects? Could I miss out on X, Y and Z? But that’s usually what I’ve seen and how employees kind of approach it fully.
Sarah Wilkins
On their computer and still connected. It kind of sets that same tone for people and so they feel like they can never truly get away. So instead of taking time off, it’s just easier to stay on, I guess, if you will. What are things that you can do? If this is the right type of policy for you to have and you really do have the culture and want the flexibility, how do you set this up in a way where it will work well for your organization and your people.
Seth Sherrin
I think you have to in order for it to work well. Unlimited PTO is not a one size fits all and it’s not a silver bullet. When I’ve seen it worked well, it’s in tandem with other policies, right, or other benefits. I’ve seen one company that made it mandatory. You need to take off so much time. I’ve seen that a company that’s worked really well is an added benefit. They offer a travel agent service so they’re encouraging employees to take that time or plan vacations or take time out of the office. I think it just has to come in with either you already have like a great culture already set in on time off or there’s another policy or another framework set in to kind of go with it that just matches the culture and matches what you’re trying to drive with your employees.
Eliza Polly
Again, it has to start at the top. It’s got to be something that employees feel completely comfortable doing and if there is no enforcement of it, that will obviously cause problems. The other thing I’ve seen, maybe similar to the travel agent thing, which is an interesting idea, is I’ve seen little, not so little, but some additional benefits and perks given. Like here’s a voucher towards a hotel chain and people aren’t going to hopefully not sit on that forever. It will hopefully encourage them to book the rest of the trip and then use the dollars that they got towards their hotel room to help them. That gets a little tricky when people are really specific or picky about where they stay, but at least the intent there is to say, here’s a little nudge to book a trip. Honestly, I think the thing that I’ve seen that works the best, which does not involve money, is transparency with people scheduling time and it can backfire as well. But there are a couple of companies that I’ve seen recently who there’s no accrual process. It’s unlimited, quote unquote. But you do request the time off through your Hris and it shows up on a company calendar. And I think that that can help with seeing or not seeing which leaders are taking time off when your manager is planning to take off for the rest of the year, if they’ve planned ahead. And it obviously helps day to day with work because you know who’s around and who’s not around. But I think people start to look at patterns and the more that they see people, particularly in leadership, taking vacation time, it seems to encourage them more. It’s not a one fixed solution but I think the visibility of it can be really helpful. There’s, of course, a flip side to seeing people who take excessive vacation and people wondering why that person is never around, things like that. But I’ve seen it, particularly in a startup high performance environment, I’ve seen it as something where people feel almost left out if they don’t take vacation. And their manager can then look at the calendar and say, look, the rest of your team has been getting some good R and R, it’s your turn. Things like that, I think, can just help get the mindset right, that it’s something that everyone needs to engage in, even the most busy people on the team.
Sarah Wilkins
Our staff team does that where we our vacations out on the calendar. And Michaela our CEO, actually, people tell her Superpower is taking time off. She’s really great at booking it, getting it on the calendar. You know, I think I love how we’ve pointed out that the leader really drives it. If you have a leader who notices that their team isn’t taking any time off, how would you coach them in helping their team get the time off or make it a priority?
Eliza Polly
It doesn’t always fit everyone’s schedule. But I’ve seen recently, and I know Reverb has done this, I’ve seen other companies do this where they just block a week and they say the company is closed this week. And one of my recent clients, they did that, but they took one person out of each functional area and made them the on call in case there were emergencies, that on call person, they had a spreadsheet where they rotated who that would be so that it was fair. And depending on who was around or wanted to go on vacation that week or not, there would always be someone, and not every business can manage that. But I think when you are larger and there’s more resources, that’s a really nice option for people, so that there is no pointing at certain people or figuring out when you can go out. And it’s just the same for everyone, if that’s possible. I think leaders should at least think about that as an option for their business. They have to first personally notice and be in line with less. Vacation is a problem. I’ve worked with companies who put that policy out there. But the reality is that the CEO really was nervous when people were out of the office and didn’t think the business was going to be as successful. And that’s the mindset that has to change before you even have a policy like this. That has to be there first.
Sarah Wilkins
Yeah, that it’s important. That’s a very good thing to point out. And I like your example because as a staff team, we tried Summer Fridays two years ago or three, and it was great. But we found because we’re in a client service, customer service, always on type of environment, that some people never really shut off on those days. And so to correct that, we created a calendar and just had one person every week. And it was fair and it was scattered across the whole team and really made a difference, I could tell for everybody. So just that little simple change of like, yeah, there’s one person on call, you know it’s going to be covered and you can shut off because otherwise it’s hard to shut off.
Eliza Polly
And the shutting off is a big part too. I’ve encouraged CEOs in the past that if they do get an email from someone who’s on vacation, they need to respond and say, I don’t want to get more emails from you for the rest of the week. Not in a punitive way, but in a supportive way to give them permission. I think when you work with a lot of really driven type A kinds of people, they sometimes just need permission to take a minute for themselves. And I think just giving that while someone is on vacation and still worrying about email is really important because otherwise your vacation is not restorative and you come back feeling like you need a.
Seth Sherrin
Vacation or the anxiety of all the work that’s piling up. Right. Even checking, I know for me it’s not the meat like what’s in the emails, it’s how many emails I’m looking at. You’re taking that time off and then you get the anxiety of like, I’m going to have 5000 million emails I’m going to have to dig through and it just kind of ruins the whole resting and step away experience.
Sarah Wilkins
One time I took a long vacation, my first one, it was two weeks and I just took my email off of my phone. So I didn’t even think about it until I put it back on when I was back from the vacation. And that was the best thing for me. I had no computer and the email was no longer on my phone. As a person who has a hard time shutting off, that was a trick I used.
Seth Sherrin
Yeah, I know everybody has a luxury, but I think, yes, having like separating your work computer and your personal computer and you’re taking stuff off your phone, that was the best thing. If you have that situation, take advantage of it because that is how you can shut off and get rest.
Eliza Polly
I started looking at my calendar on my return date until like 01:00 p.m. And basically told everybody I’m back the afternoon of Monday and spent those few hours facing the inbox, getting myself organized, and most of the time not having people looking for me. It depends on your environment, working from home, in the office, et cetera, but putting some preparation for when you get back so that you don’t feel that dread during your entire vacation. Because that dread can be as bad as reading the emails during your vacation. Dreading the return can ruin your vacation vibe really fast and that becomes unproductive and unhealthy for people as well.
Sarah Wilkins
Yeah, all these tips are great and I love that one just to get caught up. Yeah. So I hear from all of this discussion leaders and the culture that is set and their belief around what type of time off, if that time off is important and restorative and helpful to their teams and business is the right place to start before determining what type of PTO policy you put in place. But any other final piece of advice that you would give to leaders deciding on what PTO policy works for them and how best to roll out and monitor it?
Seth Sherrin
Yeah, I would say what is your goal? What is your goal in implementing a time off policy? Right. Like one of the big advantages in PTO unlimited PTO, when it was first out is like it became this whole process of, well, it’s not accrual. So if you leave, we don’t have to pay you. Right. That’s some cost savings here and there. It’s over the time that you would actually take it. So what is your goal? Do you want people to actually take it and not have a burnout staff, not have high turnover, but you want some of those benefits? Think about that and then think about the policies and the culture that you’re implementing in tandem with that. If unlimited is just not something that fits your culture right now, but you want to be able to give something expansive, then look at what is the industry that you’re working in, what is competitive and what is restful and what seems generous to get good talent and then how do you manage it? And don’t be mad when somebody takes advantage of it. Right, so I just would really give like, what is your goal?
Eliza Polly
I agree with that. And on the flip side, we haven’t talked about the taking advantage part. We’ve mostly been focusing on people that don’t take enough vacation. But there’s absolutely going to be cases where people take too much. And I think thinking through, if you are prepared to handle that as a management team ahead of time, that you are willing to measure performance. And if performance is going to be contingent upon a certain amount of in person or zoom attendance, then you have to think that through and be ready to call that out. I think there is concern from some employees sometimes that the people who do take a lot of vacation are not 100% pulling their weight and projects and that needs to be measured separately from your vacation hours. If you have an unlimited policy and there’s nuances around that that I think need to be thought through. Because there will inevitably be people who it may not look to everyone like it’s being abused, but there will be. Times where employees feel like someone is not around enough and there has to be forethought in how to manage those situations and not make it. Then feel like an hourly environment where you’re calling out the hours that people need to be working because that opens up a whole other set of problems.
Seth Sherrin
You’re not time keeping your co workers. That’s super toxic. But I’ve seen that.
Eliza Polly
recently where a company was frustrated that someone was they were trying to solve for one person versus the overall problem. But there was one person who was taking quite a bit of time off and not meeting their job responsibilities. And so they started telling that person, you need to work 40 hours. And I said, time out. Let’s not talk about number of hours, let’s talk about results that you’re looking for and measuring them and working with this person to see if they are going to be able to meet their objectives in the time frame that you expect. But I understand the desire to kind of get really micro detailed on the number of hours because you’re trying to achieve the same thing, which is I need results and not getting them. And so there has to be thought about how to manage that without getting into a wage and hour issue.
Sarah Wilkins
Yeah, and I think it’s what you said both really important is really around managing the expectations and objectives that you have for that person regardless of the time that they take off. So making sure that person knows and has clear expectations, clear objectives to accomplish and if they aren’t accomplishing them, then that’s more of a performance discussion that needs to be had between them and the leader and not so much honing in on the exact amount of time off they’ve taken, I think is what I hear.
Seth Sherrin
Yeah. I would add another dimension to leaders. What are you frustrated at? Are you frustrated at planned time or unplanned time? Kind of associate with is that there is a difference between planned and unplanned in this.
Sarah Wilkins
Well, awesome. This was super helpful. Thank you both. It was great to talk to you today and looking forward to everyone hearing this episode.
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