Why the success of unlimited PTO comes down to culture, clarity, and thoughtful planning.
Unlimited paid time off seems to come with two contradictory warnings.
For employers, the concern is that people will take advantage of it: Will staff be out constantly? Will work slow down? How can a small organization maintain enough capacity?
For employees, the concern is almost the opposite: Without a set number of vacation days, will people actually feel comfortable taking time off? Or will “unlimited” PTO result in employees taking less?
So, which is true?
I’ve had unlimited PTO for the last five years, and personally, it’s a benefit I value more than almost any other. What I’ve learned is that neither outcome is inevitable. Unlimited PTO can offer employees meaningful flexibility without requiring them to ration a fixed number of days, but the policy alone doesn’t make that flexibility real. That depends on the culture, expectations, and systems an organization builds around it.
To clarify: unlimited PTO doesn’t mean unlimited absence.
Of course, unlimited PTO isn’t actually unlimited; it couldn’t be. Everyone still needs to do their job, and do it well, which takes time. The real benefit isn’t endless vacation, but the flexibility this policy provides. Employees don’t have to ration a fixed bank of hours between vacations, appointments, family responsibilities, and everything else that happens outside of work.
What do the numbers say?
Although over a quarter of jobseekers would consider a lower-paying job in exchange for unlimited PTO, and 20% of candidates wouldn’t accept a job without it (Empower, 2024), only about 7% of employers offer an open or unlimited leave policy (SHRM 2024 Employee Benefits Survey). It’s worth understanding whether employer concerns about PTO hold up.
Research has shown that employees at companies with unlimited PTO take an average of 16 days off a year, whereas employees with a fixed allotment take 14. It’s an increase, but it may not be quite as significant a difference as some employers assume (Empower, 2024).
So, the fear that unlimited PTO will lead employees to take dramatically more time off doesn’t appear to hold up. But the employee concern that people may hesitate to use the benefit has a little more truth to it.While half of workers say they’d take more time off if they had an unlimited policy, nearly a quarter say they’d take less (Empower, 2024). In other words, removing your defined number of PTO days may not necessarily lead to more rest for your team.
People already leave time on the table no matter what the policy looks like: 46% of U.S. workers who get paid time off take less than they’re offered (Pew Research Center, 2023). When Pew asked why, the reasons tend to center around fear and guilt:
- They don’t feel they need to take more time off (52%)
- They worry about falling behind at work if they were to take more time off (49%)
- They would feel badly about their co-workers having to take on additional work (43%)
- Taking more time off might hurt their chances for advancement at work (19%)
- Think they might risk losing their job (16%)
- Their manager or supervisor discourages them from taking time off (12%)
Even when employees do take time off, it can be challenging to unplug. Nearly half of full-time employees check work email while on PTO, and 42% answer emails. And the discomfort may start before the trip even does; 35% say they feel anxious just requesting the days (Empower, 2024).
What does this mean? In all likelihood, it is more about your own organizational culture, rather than the policy itself, that will determine employees’ approach to PTO. This shows up in a number of ways: whether leaders visibly take their own vacation, whether requesting a day feels like the norm or like asking for a favor, whether coverage is planned for, and whether time off is discussed openly.
What we’ve learned testing this at Trepwise
Unlimited PTO can be done well, but it works because we’ve put parameters around it:
- Only a certain number of people can be out on the same day. This is simple, but important to ensure we have enough coverage at any given point. During our busiest periods, PTO is capped at three team members off at a time (first come, first served).
- There are caps on how much time can be taken at once. No one is out more than ten consecutive business days at a time without special approval, and we hold blackout windows around major firm breaks. We’re a small team, so we have to keep coverage appropriate and even across everyone.
- Our managers communicate when things get busy. Unlimited PTO doesn’t mean every week is equally open. When a project is heading into a crunch or the whole team needs to be available, managers say so directly, and PTO gets deprioritized for that stretch of time.
- We plan coverage before anyone leaves. When someone takes time off, we map out who’s covering what ahead of the absence, so work doesn’t stall and no one returns to a pile-up or missed deadline. Time off is something project teams plan around together.
- We build systems that allow us to treat each other like people. Humanity is one of our values, and that means recognizing that team members have lives and priorities outside of work. But genuine flexibility is only possible because we plan for it. Each month, we assess team capacity three or more months out, and we review a shared PTO calendar during our weekly team meeting. That visibility allows us to make room for people’s lives without compromising client work or placing an unexpected burden on the rest of the team.
This benefit has resulted in team members who are grateful to leadership for seeing them as full people with lives and priorities outside of work. It has increased morale across the team and has been a valuable tool to avoid burnout.
In conclusion: the policy is only as good as its practice.
Do employees exploit unlimited PTO? Not inherently. Do employees hesitate to use unlimited PTO? Sometimes. Neither outcome is dictated by the policy itself.
What determines whether unlimited PTO works is whether the organization creates clear expectations, adequate coverage, visible leadership support, and systems that allow employees to actually use the flexibility they’re being offered.
Your policy is the easy part; the culture and structures underneath it are what make it work. If you’re looking to examine and strengthen your organization’s culture, we’d love to help. Reach out to the team at Trepwise.
