20 days annual leave is Dickensian

[Palacelife]

Most firms now start on 25. I think 20 just smacks of a mean firm and not a place you want to be. AIBU?

@CakeInAJar it wouldn't really be a number at which point you'd think it was taking the piss. It's just if work was falling through, someone was never around, if it was generally just making it awkward for other people and the company was suffering. Though I think there would be obvious issues with that person's performance if they were doing that, it wouldn't just be down to their annual leave.

I'm a PA, I'm not in management. No-one has any real idea how many days anyone else has taken, except HR and some management. Days are tracked to make sure people actually take enough (and I guess to see if anyone is extreme). I know at the 6 month mark of our annual leave year most people were deemed not to have taken enough, and encouraged to book some in.

Sounds divine to me, by comparison with my 12 days a year! (Not in the UK)

OP it is far too little.
Of course everyone on MN has high-paying jobs with loads of annual leave. But for most of us annual leave is too low.

Yes it's crap and it would make me wonder if they did bare minimum elsewhere and what the heck America has to do with it, who knows.

America is quoted at us to try and get us to be grateful. As if we should all be aspiring to terrible workers rights and families with children sleeping in the streets.

It's the law?!? What do you think it is??

It’s 28 days. There’s nothing in law to say that eight of them must be used on bank holidays.

I would not touch a 20 day annual leave company with a barge pole. That shows an out-of-touch management team with little interest in employee wellbeing. I would bet good money on that maternity being stat only too,

We are 28 days PLUS Bank Holidays, however, if I ran out of days and wanted the odd day off for a break, it would be allowed. We are also encouraged to just book days off for example, the weather is nice. We are trusted to be responsible with our work and deadlines etc.

Cue a plethora of ‘I’m self employed and haven’t had a days’ leave in 3 years’ posts

Americans haven’t always had such shit paid leave - car workers in the 1950s and 1960s used to get 4 weeks.
Unlimited paid time off was originally cooked up as an accounting dodge for US companies. Most US states allow people to “save up” paid leave - some people even bank it for retirement and companies need to show it as a liability on their balance sheet as workers have a legal right to payout. Undefined leave means the company doesn’t have to report a liability.

Think you'll find 'Dickensian' was no annual leave and maybe half a day off in seven.
Plus of course, no EasyRyan to the sun.

Don't ever take a job in the US. We have no guaranteed annual leave. And federal holidays are only for a few.

I have US colleagues, including some who are UK expats. The holidays are the same as in the UK it's just done differently.

Sick leave seems to be organised differently in the US too? Technically in the U.K. I have six months on full pay and then up to two years on half pay but that's only for a major calamity occurring. In reality the Bradford Factor scores mean anyone taking much more than 8 days off sick a year is frowned upon. And that includes going to medical appointments.

Whereas friends in the US seem to have allocated 'sick days' (about 5?) and can choose to take one as a duvet day if they haven't already needed to use them.

20 days plus BH is a bit bargain basement. Always makes me think they're the sort of employer who scrimp on stuff.

Yeah 20 + bank hols is pretty crap in this day and age. We get 25 + bank hols now but was 22 + bank hols when I started and I was unimpressed...

Is it paid?

And how does the company cover people's work?

My husband works in the Uk and it has recently been bought by an American. When they were discussing pay and other matters annual leave was mentioned. When my husband informed him what the allowance was he couldn’t believe it, my husband gave him the government website to look at just to show he wasn’t trying to pull a fast one.

If you're a high earner in the US I imagine you get a generous annual leave allowance on a par with the UK. But your average joe and joanne (the majority of the US population) won't.

Its hardly Dickensian, but a company offering statutory minimums on holiday, pension contribution, sick leave etc. don't deserve loyal hard working staff.

People who are in entry-level jobs get less PTO on average, then it rises with more time in the role.

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/pto-statistics/

The average American worker gets 11 days of paid vacation per year

In the private sector, the average number of paid vacation days after five years of service increases to 15 days.4 After 10 years of service, it rises again to 17 days. For employees with 20 years of service or more, the average number of paid vacation days is 20. Keep in mind that these are strictly averages as there is no guaranteed PTO in the U.S.

I was thinking about this, and I realised that I get 32 days leave plus bank hols (so 40) and can take another 2 days a month Flexi -so 24. Which makes a total of 64 days I could take.

The trade off is I do very long hours a lot of the time , but actually in a year like this one when I will take 50 ish days leave , I am doing a lot of work at other times (evenings/weekends) to get the job done. What it does give me really is a degree of flexibility (work requirements allowing)

So next week I am taking a few half days Flexi because I have other things on, but this weekend i worked about 10 hours. The job is getting done, just in a different way.

My point being I imagine those with 'unlimited ' leave still end up doing the same amount of work, just with a different pattern to it.

But it can only really work there is a good degree of trust on both sides. I can imagine it can easily go wrong