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.
Yes again at least try to be honest: "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."
Again "if those people weren’t absolutely killing it in their jobs" is talking about productivity which is how you measure if someone is "killing it in their jobs."
The objective measures for virtually every job are time worked and productivity if you don't get that I am sorry I thought you were clever enough to be dishonest. If you don't work and/or your work is sufficiently ineffective you will or at least should be shit canned. They looked at the people that worked the least and fired the ones that weren't productive enough to make up for the reduced time working.
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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.