More and more companies these days are offering unlimited vacation. Does it work?

I’ve been reading No Rules Rules and one of the sections is about Netflix’s implementation of their unlimited vacation policy. The idea is simple: at Netflix, vacation is unlimited. My first thoguht was this is a perk that is going to be abused, so I went to Twitter to see what people thought.

Unlimited vacation: good or bad? I've been doing some research and if it's bad, it might not be the perk itself, but instead the org, how it's implemented and modeled by leadership.

— Bryan Liles (@bryanl) September 17, 2020

Almost instantly, I started receiving feedback that people are not fans. Common responses include:

• It’s bad
• I’ll feel guilty and never take vacation
• My employer will take advantage of me

Ultimately, I’m not sure how I feel about it, but another set of replies capture ways of making unlimited vacations work:

• Leadership must model good behavior. If you want your employes to trust the policy, leaders must take advantage of the policy and be extra vocal about it
• There could be some notion of minimums, to help employees not feel so guilty