Greetings from day one of my week of PTO. Seemed like a fitting time to talk about one of my favorite benefits: unlimited time off.
A lot of people say unlimited PTO is a scam. And in many companies, it is. But that’s not a failure of the policy; it’s a failure of leadership.
I stand behind unlimited PTO 100%. We use it at my organization, and we make an effort to ensure it gets used. And that’s the key: leaders have to take responsibility for making it work.
You have to build a culture that respects time off. Make it clear people aren’t to be bothered when they’re out. Do a regular inventory of who hasn’t taken time and ask why. Then fix those barriers.
Most of the time, what stops someone from taking PTO isn’t laziness or neglect; it’s guilt. They don’t want to burden their team. Or maybe they’re in the middle of a big project. Or they treat PTO like a golf score, where the lower the number, the more impressive it looks.
Those are all management issues. If someone feels like they can’t step away, that’s often on leadership. Do you have a contingency plan so people can unplug? Are your timelines so inflexible that a few days off will derail everything? What message are you sending – directly or indirectly – about time off?
Your team is too valuable to screw up with a poorly executed unlimited PTO program. Build the systems to make it work.
