The Pros and Cons of Paid Time Off for Your Employees - Why We Have an Unlimited Policy
It’s almost summertime, the season of vacations! Here at The Spark Mill, we have unlimited PTO. This means we don’t track our time off, or have a set amount to use, lose, or save up. You are probably very excited or horrified by the thought of this, but almost everyone is usually curious about how it actually works.
HERE ARE THE PROS:
No tracking!
No full-page policies, explaining how to account for the 2-hour dentist appointment one morning or the holiday you observe but the rest of your team doesn’t. People take off when they need to.
It’s a trending model in the workforce and seen as a perk to employees and potential applicants for open positions.
Everyone comes in on the same level including those with more tenure. This might not seem like a good deal for people who have years at one place where they can accumulate many, many hours of PTO. But generally, trends show people are moving around jobs more often than ever before.
HERE ARE THE CONS:
Someone could take advantage of the situation. This is definitely possible and also probably one symptom of a bigger problem.
People might not feel empowered to take time off and then it’s not a benefit at all. This is why it’s incredibly important to be embedded in the culture and that leadership model both taking off time and expecting that their staff will too.
You can’t save up PTO. Whether it’s for big events like a once-every few years-long road trip, or family leave for a new baby, or when you transition to a new job at a new company, you won’t have a big check with all your left-over leave. Of course, there are ways to work around the first two examples, but the third one is just a tradeoff.
For our team of 6 (soon to be 7, we are hiring!), it works really well. We take time as we need it and have embedded a culture that values time away from the office. You are expected to take time off, and we trust that you will do the prep work to be able to leave your work at work and come back refreshed. We don’t have mandatory holidays, and we don’t have spreadsheets tracking who used what time and how much time they used.
If you are interested in learning more about the benefits or the logistics of unlimited PTO, please feel free to send me an email so we can discuss it! Lindsey O-Pries, SHRM-CP