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Comment by balloot | Hacker News Reader

I'm not a huge fan of the "unlimited" time. I've never worked somewhere with that policy, but it seems an unintended result would be that nobody knows exactly how much time is considered "reasonable". The policy likely sounds way better than it ends up being.

I say pick a number that you think no productive employee should exceed. Make that the yearly number, and make sure everyone knows that they will be encouraged to take ALL their days. Make the days expire after a year, so people don't feel the need to "bank" days. Then, everyone knows where they stand in terms of how much vacation they "should' be taking.

For the record, If I were starting a company now, I would make the number of days in the aforementioned system start at 20, and then increase with seniority.

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This "increase with seniority" that's so common in the US makes no sense to me. (At my current job at the kindof-sortof-federal government, I get 12 days as a new employee.) Do newly-hireds work less hard and need less time to relax?

Plus, since the time to max out usually is quite long, it really penalizes people who switch jobs (which I guess is what you get when the vacation policies are set for the good of the employer as opposed to the employee).

"What’s normal for time off varies from country to country but a reasonable guideline is 30 working days per calendar year, excluding local public holidays."

They say what's considered reasonable in one of the rules. My personal take is that another 5 days more or less won't be that big of a deal. Combined with the last rule, you actually have a minimum--feel free to take off less than 25 days per year, but you won't get the 50% bonus in December.

As someone else noted many of these ideas won't work in countries where large chunks of payed holidays are enshrined in law.

In Australia most of us have 40 days per year that roll into the next year if you don't take them. There are options for employees to turn in some of their days for cash if they accrue a lot which is nice.

In Australia most of us have 40 days per year

Err.. most of us have 4 working weeks of paid vacation per year. That's 20 days, not 40 (although it excludes paid sick leave - usually 10 days - and public holidays). Vacation leave usually rolls over, but sick leave varies. Public holidays don't.

(I'm Australian, and I've never seen variance on this except on the roll-over rules. The one exception is my current employer that offers an extra day off on your birthday)

Gah you are quite right maths on a hangover obviously isn't my strong suite.

Careful with that if you are based in Europe, 20 is not enough for some countries.

The 5th bullet point says 30 days is a reasonable guideline with the bonus after 25 days there to encourage that further.

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