Contents
Long work hours
Hackfests, hackathons
Hiring practices
See also: Hiring discrimination and Culture fit
Leave policies
Unlimited vacation
In the United States, where minimum amounts of paid leave are often not required from employers, some startups and tech businesses offer "unlimited vacation" rather than a stated amount or a minimum. This sounds attractive but:
- mean that people's only guide to appropriate amounts of vacation to take come from their colleagues, and mainstream US corporate culture and startup culture may both contribute towards this being very low
- may make people subject to their particular manager's low tolerance for vacation
- often mean that no money is paid out at the end of employment for any unused vacation
- if the company is, or becomes, international may disadvantage any US-based employees relative to their international peers with legally mandated vacation provisions
Possible alternatives:
- stated vacation provisions (eg, 20 days per year)
- minimum vacation provisions
Further reading
- Jacob Kaplan-Moss The limits of “unlimited” vacation
- Mathias Meyer From Open (Unlimited) to Minimum Vacation Policy
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