Do NOT join Microsoft. They robbed us & it‘s toxic #DTO
So the news is out and we know that we now get discretionary unlimited PTO as opposed to a specific amount of days. Sounds fancy and good for the people which is clearly NOT the case. From now on vacation days don‘t accrue anymore which means if you don’t take your days you won‘t get the cash benefit anymore. Also, floating holidays are being taken off the table as well. Huge savings for MS after April. Also laid-off people not getting vacation time paid out once they get fired. Again, big saving on the balance sheet. The other even more problematic issue is that this is even more embracing a toxic work culture. We have lots of bullies in mgmt positions and a toxic manager like in my org will use this against employees to give them low / zero rewards for taking vacations. With this change now your manager needs to approve and it‘s totally up to him to do that based on the justification you provide. It sounds obvious but this is a huge thing. Before, we basically just took the days off, informed the manager and that was it. Now they are empowered to say NO and play others against each other, stack rank them, etc. Bottom line an already toxic place with lots of toxic managers became even more toxic. We clearly going from bad to worse and this is a preparation for future layoffs. Managers are now encouraged to deny DTO if you're not meeting performance, but similar to LITE there's no guardrails around that. We will see much more LITE connects / zero rewards, attrition and toxic games. Welcome to the new Microsoft where cheap tactics and toxic culture is the new norm. RUN Away! #dto #notunlimitedvacation #microsuck
Welcome to the real world. Most other (non-tech) companies have been dealing with similar BS for a while...
Unlimited PTO AND “forced attrition” is definitely not common in the vast majority of American middle market companies. Helluva a combo
@New I was speaking about a steady reduction of benefits / compensation in general.
Whatever, this guy likes to over react - he’s catastrophizing. Own your career and time-off, your manager had to approve time off before as well.
Genius- as a proportion of your TC, how much $$$ are we really talking about, to cash out one time, when you leave msft? Not that much! If shit is working out, tc keeps growing, and you like the environment, there was likely a cap on the accrued pto bank, that carry to a new year. No financial benefit with the accrued model unless you resign. So you have a default expectation the job will not work out and banking on that 5-figure payout on the way out? Lol
We also get a lump sum of our current accrued PTO. So it's as if we left today, and came back with unlimited PTO.
Seems like it’s not stealing if you get a lump sum. While DTO seems meh and a ploy to reduce the balance sheet, it could be handled a whole lot worse. This is mostly in response to the OP.
Yeah, it's the worst.
You’re being a little dramatic but I agree this isn’t a great change as I’d rather keep the old way. Unlimited PTO is an accounting gimmick to shave back liabilities on the books. But most teams are more concerned that employees won’t take their time off. Managers used to be able to track PTO taken and had a metric if their teams were losing vacation time time at rollover, thus why at the end of the year everyone burned time off like crazy. This is where people will get robbed if they don’t take their time. Will there be micro managers that game this? Sure, but they already could deny your time off before anyways if they really wanted to. You always needed their approval per HR policy but most managers take a position of just being informed when you want to take time as long as your shit is handled.
Previously you were entitled to a benefit. Now this is totally discretionary. Don’t you understand the difference? You had a way to say no, I’m not losing my vacation days. Now there is no such thing. If you’re manager wants to get rid of you he got probably the most powerful tool to do so
I hear ya and I’m saying I mostly agree. But let’s be real, if there was a conspiracy that your manager wanted to can you, they wouldn’t need this to do it. Managing out has always been a thing.
I hate unlimited PTO for the reasons the OP stated. There have been studies that suggest employees take fewer days off with unlimited PTO so it's a win for the company - fewer vacation days and no payout when employees leave.
I don’t understand why companies with unlimited PTO doesn’t have a no-questions-asked minimum PTO days. That should solve this problem right ? And so, not having this minimum PTO count is clearly a sign of abuse
because their end goal is not to give you more and better but to subtly make you take less PTO
Welcome to 2012
Ugh… your post is toxic!
We have “unlimited PTO” too. So do a lot of tech companies. It sucks, but it’s not uncommon. Just remember to use it and request off
Username checks out.