Cap on vacation accumulation

[bgould132]

15 days of paid vacation per year is great. In accordance with the value that inspired the sabbatical, I'd suggest capping accumulated vacation - perhaps at 30 days, or 2x annual accumulation - with the goal of encouraging employees to use vacation (not save indefinitely) while still enabling them to take extended vacations.

[iamb55]

Hm, this is a good perspective. We definitely want to encourage actually taking vacation time.

[benwerd]

Another possibility is to provide a small bonus if employees take a certain amount of vacation. Haje Jan Kamps tried this at Triggertrap and it worked well (note, also, the discussion about accounting for vacation time rather than just making it open): http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015/07/14/unlimited_vacation_time_this_company_tried_it_and_it_was_a_total_failure.html

[metavida]

Our company just emailed me a reminder: "Don't fotget to take advantage of your 30 hours of vacation that expire in January." A great feeling knowing they want me to actuall use that time off!

On a policy level, It's good to remember to sync up vacation expiration dates with your company's slow season. For example, if the Christmas season is crazy for your business, January 1st might be a painful timing to have vacation days expire.

Related to @benwerd's comment, I've also heard of "paid, paid vacation" being used as an incentive for employees to actually use vacation time. That is, "you get X amount of money to spend on vacation-related expenses": https://moz.com/rand/keeping-amazing-people-on-the-team/