Your Unlimited Vacation Policy is Stupid

On this day after a Federal holiday, I know some companies vacillate between requiring work or giving people an extra paid day for the long holiday weekend. Many other companies have jumped on the bandwagon of offering "Unlimited Vacation", "Flexible Time Off", or some other variation that take the traditional policy granting a certain number of paid days off and increases it to infinity. So maybe this is a moot point...or is it? Besides a few legal hurdles to getting it right, you're likely getting it wrong anyway. And here is the simple reason why...policies do not change cultures.

Cultures are built around the informal norms of an organization. Essentially, culture is defined by how people act when no one is telling them how to act. Policies, are kind of the opposite. Policies are formal ways of acting that are mandated from an organizational perspective. But here is the thing. Execs often exempt themselves from what everyone else is required to do. (How many vacation days does your CEO have? Do you even track it?) So policies, by definition are a way to control others.

Creating a policy that removes control is ironic at best, and hypocritical at worst. The thing is, if you truly trust your people to take the time they need to re-energize, do their job, and be where they need to be (they're adults, right?) then you don't need a policy at all. Like nothing. Time away from work can but just as organic as what time people come in and leave. Wait...you have a policy dictating when people come in? And you track their time? Even exempt (salaried) employees? FOR GOODNESS SAKE, WHY?!

Tracking both is stupid, unnecessary, and does harm to any culture of trust that you are trying to create. It's also a sign of lazy management. Someone's presence is the easiest thing to track and the least related to performance of ANY metric...unless of course their job is as a living statue. But seriously, we have all worked with people who are "present" and do absolutely nothing. We've all probably been that employee at one point or another - watching the clock tick away until we feel it is "acceptable" to leave even when we have not been productive for hours.\

And managers, you are not "setting a good example" by staying later or "being there" when you don't need to be. Quite the opposite. You are sending the impression that "presence" is more important than "contribution."

If you want unlimited vacation to actually be a thing that people enjoy, feel benefit from, and creates a high performing culture - stop creating policies, instead, delete them entirely. If that sounds scary then you are probably missing something on the following list that is WAY more important than a vacation policy:

• Set expectations
• Share your expectations
• Provide visibility to (or continuous feedback on) and individual's performance compared to the expectations
• Provide resources and support to achieve expectations
• Hold people accountable to meeting expectations

If you have done all those things well, you do not need a vacation policy. You do not need an attendance policy, and you certainly do not need to track people's hours. It's about expected performance...not expected presence.

My dad once told me a saying some people at his work had "if you want to screw the company, work as directed." Telling people WHEN and HOW to work (versus WHAT needs to get done and WHY) will almost always get you the least efficient and quite possibly the least effective results.

Your behavior says more about your culture than your policies. No one wakes up in the morning and thinks "man, I hope I disappoint people today." They want to meet expectations and often creating a policy designed to provide autonomy can create confusion as to what your expectation really is. Even if you have an unlimited vacation policy, you might be holding people to a different expectation. Do you reward or recognize people for the time they spend, or the contribution they make? Be clear about your recognition. You can appreciate people for effort AND you can reward people for their contribution. Don't mix the two. Otherwise, you're likely creating a culture that ignores policies and follows the unspoken norms, which becomes a slippery slope when you get to the policies that really matter (laws, ethics, etc.)

Communicate, Trust, and Support. That is your role. No one cares about your policy. They care about how you act when no one is telling you how to act.

And I could be wrong? Thoughts?