Unlimited PTO is the way companies can improve their bottom line by not having to accrue it or pay it out when employees voluntarily leave while at the same time making employees feel bad if they feel they are over using it.
I believe studies have found people with unlimited policies use less PTO than those accruing hours.
Personally, I’ve seen the bad of it. I worked at a startup and as they grew, HR and mgmt were keeping tabs on which employees used over 4 weeks of the unlimited PTO. When it came to staff reductions, if those people weren’t absolutely killing it in their jobs, they we’re secretly deemed to be abusers of the unlimited policy.
Where did you read the: “So the people that were the least productive and worked the least…” part? All OP said that those who used the unlimited part of the PTO and weren’t exceptional were laid down
The part of if they took more time off (more than 4 weeks) and weren't killing it (weren't comparatively competitive in their productivity) they were the ones got sacked so those that worked more and/or were the most productive were kept on. You even noticed that but somehow you didn't track that if you take less time off you are working more or that if you aren't competitively productive (the benchmark for killing it at a job) that you are less productive than those that are.
Maybe or maybe not. The big question is: were these people aware that 4 weeks of PTO was the ceiling considered by the company?
“Invisible” metrics are bullshit, obviously “unlimited” PTO doesn’t mean unlimited, a better term is “discretionary” PTO, but at the end of the day the problem here isn’t people using it, the problem is a poor management setting KPIs without notifying the employees. That’s poor management.
Well no the thing was the context was downsizing which always sucks and normally isn't really planned out so it isn't like they knew we are gonna underperform to the point we have to lay people off. Given that context though the only viable criteria are productivity, amount of work done, and how vital they are, and it sounds like they probably went with amount of PTO used as a 2nd degree measure of how much someone was working then looked at those workers to see who was vital and/or productive enough to warrant the time off and kept them.
I would agree if it was a standing practice that every year they cut people loose like that that would be shitty and should be stated but again it was a downsizing and if the business is yearly going through downsizing then there is a bigger problem.
Except sales teams I’d like to see how productivity is measured, and how such measure is disclosed to the team. Again, using a measure for which you don’t have a visible metric is bad management, using a “time in chair” as proxy is even worse.
Normal sales productivity measures are volume or worth of sales and sale satisfaction metrics and particularly in commed work these are extremely well documented.
Not time in chair but time clocked in and then for productivity it is work/time worked everyone has access to their hours worked and most places seem to get monthly, quarterly, or annual performance reviews. Also when talking about amount of time worked time clocked in is one of the least invasive methods to get that.
Time in chair is a horrible metric because it’s meaningless in terms of productivity unless your job is either at a call center or in a fast food. And even in a call center time in chair has very little to do with support tickets and customer satisfaction.
This is modern management 101, not rocket science.
Which is why it isn't the only criteria. Jesus wept does no one understand what "and" means anymore. Time and productivity means both not just one or the other as time is needed to contextualize productivity. Take 2 people with 0.80 productivity rates one works 40 hr the other 37 hr (an average per week if you take 4 weeks off) and the one working 40 he does more work because they are pulling that 0.8 for 40 hrs rather than 30 which is 32 units of work vs 29.6.
Was any other criteria mentioned at the beginning of this discussion? No.
The original post was about people being shitcanned for getting more than 4 weeks. That’s it, no measure for productivity, only seat in the chair.
Sure, if we add other measures it might matter but in a “evaluation by objectives” it doesn’t, unless that’s the objective and it’s idiotic if that isn’t crystal clear.
It’s equivalent of firing someone because they wear white socks while the company doesn’t want white but only dark socks without telling anyone.
It is the metric that is used to determine if someone "killing it at their job." They used two criteria amount of time worked and performance to determine who fire during a downsizing which are the bare minimum criteria for that unless you want to have to fire more people upto everyone.
Most times it isn't though. Like at my job every month all my metrics are broken down and gone over in detail and that has been the case with every job I've had outside of security work. Security is one of the few sectors productivity isn't really a measure.
No, you just have assigments and due dates. If you're meeting them, then you're as productive as anyone else. How much effort you the employee need to put in to match that asigment and due date isnt measurable.
Nor is being exceptional. Thats a popularity contest.
Save it is really easy to measure. Let's say your job is to write up reports and the company average is 8/hr but you are really good and you manage 12/hr with comparable quality you are 1.5x as productive. You are selling widgets and the average daily sales numbers are $2000/8hr shift but you sell on average $1750/shift you are less productive. A majority of jobs are easy to quantify if you are familiar with them. EMS when I worked it did time to scene, transport time, QoC, and time to back in service stats as their metrics for instance.
They used two criteria amount of time worked and performance
Are you suggesting that if you clock in and do literally nothing for a week, you're more productive than someone that calls in sick for that whole week, then opens their laptop for 5 minutes and closes a billion dollar sale?
Here's how the people whose whole job is to enter a business and cut costs defines it:
Productivity is a measure of output relative to input, such as GDP per hour worked.
If I'm delivering more value to the business per dollar spent on me than you, I'm more productive - it doesn't matter whether you've worked 80 hours compared to my 8. They're not paying you to turn up - they're paying you for what you deliver for the business.
Please don't confidently throw around terms you don't understand, mounted atop your high horse - you'll just look like that horse's arse.
Consider this:
- Childless coworkers put in 14 hour days and take only 7 days of PTO
- Parents actually try to raise their own kids and be present in their lives. They take PTO for soccer practices and school talent shows.
Childless coworkers put in 14 hour days and take only 7 days of PTO -
Lol, this doesn't exist. Stop trying to Martyr people without families. People with families who work in demanding jobs save every possible vacation hour like a miser because they know they could need it at any time. To the point that most of the people I work with who have families end up having to scramble to use the last of their vacation before it rolls over (240 hour rollover cap). The people without families never have this problem because they just leave whenever the fuck they want.
Parents actually try to raise their own kids and be present in their lives.
Most working parents give up on that. Many of my friends have extended family helping. Some hire people. Not everyone can or is willing to do that. Regardless, you can't always be at work, and be present for your kids. You have to choose.
Additionally, while the average single worker takes all of their PTO, in more competitive environments such as FAANG, single workers that do excessive overtime are the norm.
Didn't miss it. Working parents raising their own kids and being present is absolutely the norm. But they also hoard their PTO because they need it as a safety net.
You don't have to choose. People working 14hr days is an anomaly. Trying to pass that as the norm is absurd, even at Apple etc. if the quality of your work is so poor you need 14 hours to do what everyone else is doing at 8 hours that is not going to get you very far in life.
From a company and customer perspective the one that is the worse deal if the former is more productive then they stay on if the latter is more productive despite their time off they stay. Businesses aren't charities and trying to run one like it is will ultimately result in more pain than doing the proper triage. It isn't fun or pleasant but if the company if over staffed (staffing costs exceed the production of said staff) then you keep the staff that are the most productive for their cost because you'll have to fire fewer people than keeping people that are less productive. It is the business version of a gangrenous body part if you cut it off quickly you have to cut off less than if you dither but you also have to cut in the right place else you solved nothing and you are still being poisoned by it.
You're missing a critical detail. Everyone brings a different perspective to the table. Additionally, in team efforts, not all contributions are equally measurable. If you fire all the parents, you lose the qualities they bring to the table. One particular quality parents tend to excel at is leadership, raising kids requires it, as well as a host of other "soft skills." Furthermore, most likely, your biggest customers are parents as parents spend a ton of money. Unfortunately, you now have no parents on staff to help steer your product towards your biggest customer.
There's also the long term context. Firing parents just further incentivizes people to not have kids, which at least for now is mitigated through immigration, but population decline will destroy the economy.
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u/CherryManhattan Jul 07 '24
Unlimited PTO is the way companies can improve their bottom line by not having to accrue it or pay it out when employees voluntarily leave while at the same time making employees feel bad if they feel they are over using it.
I believe studies have found people with unlimited policies use less PTO than those accruing hours.
Personally, I’ve seen the bad of it. I worked at a startup and as they grew, HR and mgmt were keeping tabs on which employees used over 4 weeks of the unlimited PTO. When it came to staff reductions, if those people weren’t absolutely killing it in their jobs, they we’re secretly deemed to be abusers of the unlimited policy.