Unlimited vacation company policy
The Unlimited Vacation Policy allows employees to take as much leave as they need, emphasizing mutual trust between employer and employee. While there's no cap on leave, a minimum time off is established, ensuring employees rest and maintain productivity.
This Unlimited Vacation policy sample is ready to be tailored to your company’s needs and should be considered a starting point for setting up your employment policies.
The unlimited vacation policy should include:
- Definitions of the policy’s scope, including who it applies to
- Minimum and maximum time off guidelines, ensuring employees take necessary breaks
- Procedures for requesting leave, including communication expectations and supervisor approvals
Unlimited vacation company policy template
Policy brief & purpose
Our unlimited vacation company policy allows employees to take as much leave as they need. Employees need time to rest and enjoy themselves outside work. Putting a cap on this important time doesn’t help our effort to achieve high levels of employee satisfaction and productivity.
This policy is based on mutual trust between employer and employee. It gives employees opportunities to work or take time off as they see fit, as long as they keep fulfilling their duties.
Scope
This policy applies to full-time and part-time employees of the company.
Policy elements
The company doesn’t limit the amount of PTO employees can take. It does establish a minimum time off level.
All employees will have to take at least [specified number of days] off each year. This will help them avoid exhaustion and ensure they have some time to clear their minds from their work duties. The company might choose to offer incentives (e.g. bonus) to encourage employees to take time off. If employees don’t meet the minimum level, they’ll lose those incentives.
The company will track vacation time for all employees to ensure that:
- Employees take the minimum time off.
- Employees don’t take time off that compromises their performance.
Employees don’t accrue time-off so the company will not compensate unused leave. This policy doesn’t interfere with legally established leaves like maternity and paternity leave. Employees should use at least the legal amount. Any vacation leave they choose to take is separate.
Procedure
Employees are obliged to:
- Avoid abusing the policy by taking time off that negatively impacts their job and the company.
- Communicate and collaborate with their team to ensure everyone takes leave without disrupting operations.
- Plan to delegate, postpone or otherwise manage projects that will be affected by their time off.
- Notify their supervisors at least two weeks in advance.
Vacation leave of maximum one business week doesn’t need approval from supervisors. Employees are still advised to coordinate with their team members to ensure fairness and efficiency.
Supervisors need to approve vacation leave that extends beyond a business week. They should do this with a first-come, first-served system.
Supervisors can consider rejecting vacation requests if:
- Other team members with similar or complementary duties have already asked for leave during the same time.
- The time in question is too busy or includes an important deadline for the employee asking for leave.
- An employee appears to abuse the policy. Supervisors have to prove that this is the case, using data from our leave tracking system and presenting employees’ inadequate deliverables. They should also arrange a meeting with the employee and HR.
Supervisors can’t reject leave requests for any of the following reasons:
- To discipline employees.
- To force employees to fulfil duties that aren’t urgent.
- To approve leave for another employee who made a later request.
Neither list is exhaustive. Both employees and supervisors should use common sense and adhere to company policies when requesting/approving vacation leave. Effective communication between team members is vital to make this policy work for everyone.
The company will review this policy annually and address any issues.
| Disclaimer: This policy template is meant to provide general guidelines and should be used as a reference. It may not take into account all relevant local, state or federal laws and is not a legal document. Neither the author nor Workable will assume any legal liability that may arise from the use of this policy. |
Further reading
- Unlimited Time off: A good or a bad idea? – Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM)
- How to Make Unlimited Vacation Time Work at Your Company – Harvard Business Review (HBR)
- Working hours, PTO and vacation policies for your employee handbook