Census Work/life balance

As a contractor I get not much (but a fatter hourly rate!) but I selected what the companies I typically work for offer.

 

My company switched the the "Unlimited Paid Time Off" model for my class (salaried, exempt) of employee a few years ago. Basically, I don't have to track days off, and as long as I get my work done and my boss says yes, I can have a day/week/whatever off. It's an honor system more than anything - I'm trusted to not take off more time that I "should", and the company recognizes that I often work on days I take off and 60 hour work weeks, so tracking the number of days/hours I take off doesn't make much sense. I'm also encouraged to take random "mental health" days - at least twice a year - and not plan to do anything but not work. Leave the computer and cell phone off for a day, and refresh the batteries.

I've also got the freedom to pick my own hours, as long they meet business needs. Flexibility to work from home/other remote location as needed.

These two combined nicely last year when I took my paternity leave. I got two weeks paid off, then returned to work half time, working from home for a week, then full time working from home for two weeks. Then two weeks half in-office, half at-home.

Compared to most Americans, I'd grade work-life balance as an A.

I also get a company issued cell phone and laptop, though those are more to keep me productive than to actually reward/benefit me.

 

It's not that strange here. Both hourly workers in a service model (like a call center) or for some unions under collective-bargaining have things down to working X hours with Y 15-minute breaks per day (period) plus a 30 or 60 minute lunch break.

Again, we're pretty terrible!

 

I use to work for a private law firm in the IP/Patent Infringement/Secret Secrets department. Our work flow/hours were connected to the stage/status of the litigation so my hours could very. Meaning, at the early onset, there's not much to when a litigation is filed. However, when the discovery period starts rolling, as well as various motions, I could easily work 15-18 hours a day. Additionally, I was typically assigned at 5 five cases at any given time and sometimes more. When a case is in pre-trial mode; that's when life is put on hold for the most part. You're not expected to take any time off, that includes weekends and holidays and be on call 24/7, as there are deadlines and requirements to meet. Moreso, when the case is actually in trial.

Other than the lawfully required breaks and overtime hours rates, we were not given any additional vacation days or hours off. You're typically required to be in the office for ease of communication/discussions as well as preparing and organizing materials for meetings, depositions, court filings, responsive discovery, exhibits, cite checking and Shepardizing, etc.

Your annual review, rate increase, bonuses, etc., were correlated by meeting the standard required annual amount of billable hours (productivity/revenue generated). Meaning, I had to work X amount of hours where my work could be charged to a client. This did not include work hours where I participated in pro bono work.

Since I was working on several cases at any given time and they were at different stages in the litigation process, it was troublesome to schedule a lengthy vacation time. It was rare that I could take more than a week straight off. Depending on my working group, it was frown upon to take time off from work.

The max I could accrue of vacation annually was about 8 weeks, but it was capped at 8 weeks. So, I'd try to take a day off here and there. The good and bad thing was vacation time and sick time were separate. Meaning, if I was sick, it would not cut into my vacation days. However, when I left the firm, I could cash out my vacation time but not my sick time.

I really didn't have a balance between my work hours and my personal hours. Thus, I quit.

 

It's pretty sad that the lowest number of responses are in the parental leave category. Pretty savage indictment.

 

https://www.ny.gov/programs/new-york-state-paid-family-leave

Best in the country. As in, I think 2-3 states even have anything and we're the best. Go us!

 

I was super blessed to have 14 months of maternity leave and only needed to take 5 months as unpaid leave. I am so so so grateful to my place of work and to Australialand. You guys rock!

Edit: I think I got my time periods wrong. It is still awesome.

 

Salaried/Exempt with danger pay and very good time off package. Unfortunately we're in a build up/capability building phase which does not allow me to take a lot the time I have. I end up rolling over quite a bit. I try to make up for it with long weekends with at least the wife in new/fun places she hasn't been before and Christmas, kids birthdays are inviolable so I do make sure to get home for those.

 

here you get 49 weeks paid leave for the parents. 10 of which the mother has to take and 10 of which the father has to take. the rest they're free to divide between them.

or you can have 59 weeks for 80% pay.


at my job you go on paid leave as soon as you're visibly pregnant, in addition to the weeks mentioned above, because of the risk of injury. i just learned this yesterday at work haha

 

Potentially a stupid question, but is "wellbeing days" basically the same as sick leave in this poll?

At the university where I work (at least in my department), we get 9-point something hours of annual and sick leave each accrued per month (which all rolls over with each passing year). So a rough calculation puts that at about 3 weeks of annual leave and 3 weeks of sick leave per year. The annual leave accrual does go up incrementally after you reach certain milestones, starting with your 10-year anniversary. Family leave and maternal leave are basically nada--it comes out of your pool of sick leave, and if that runs out your annual leave. (I have experience with the former type of leave from taking care of my aging dad before he died last year.) There is pretty much no flexibility on hours in our department--work starts at 8:30 with a mandatory hour for lunch at either 12 or 1, and you don't leave until 5 o'clock sharp. One nice thing about our schedule is that we work 37.5 hours for a 5-day week but are paid for 40. As for overtime, technically we do have it, however overtime hasn't been an option for us in so many years that it may as well not be a thing anymore. We do get insurance plans through the university, which are not great, but better than nothing perhaps.

 

i get 22ish days of annual leave and 12 days of sick leave. i get overtime rarely. i can't work from home as the kind of work i do requires me to be in the library. my boss is very flexible if i need to come in late, leave early or take a long lunch, but i do need to take leave if i do so.

i feel like this minutiae has very little to do with my work/life balance, which i think is pretty good. i make the most of time at work, i enjoy my relationships there. and i almost never take it home with me.

 

We get paid time off that accrues at a percentage of time worked. It usually works out for me to take two 5 day paid vacations and the 4 holidays that our store is closed off, then the rest I get in a payout since our bonus system always results in us getting a bad bonus. Supposedly our bonus can max out at 3200, but we get penalized for not hitting sales goals and for insurance payouts, so we usually end up somewhere around 500 or less. So most people take two or maybe 4 vacations of 5 Days paid off and get the rest in payout.

We also have sick leave but you can be coached or fired for taking too many days off and they do not accept anything from doctors. If you have an extended health issue, they want you to take a leave of absence, unpaid but you don't get fired (at least not right away).

 

In all seriousness that parental leave is so good. Forcing fathers to be involved is necessary, sadly, given social pressures around the "traditional role of women" as carers. I'm taking my 3mo, and people are still "impressed" by the idea of a man having leave to care for his baby. It's better for fathers, it's better for the kids, and better for society because it will change the impacts to female career progression and remuneration arising from disrupted career progression.

As always, Scandinavia is putting the world to shame with its common sense inclusivity.

Yeah so I actually wanted to do a bit of a fact find up front and then discuss the whole idea of maintaining the balance. Seeing what kind of flexibility people had to live their lives without work demanding most of their time. I've done that, and I enjoyed it at the time but I don't need to go back to investment banking.

I liked your point though about the relationships at work and not taking it home. I've been taking work home lately, because it's been so busy and I've got responsibilities I can't shirk. I don't like it because it's impacted on sleep and exercise time. But, in saying that - I'm leaving lunchtime Thursday for the airport, and that time, plus Friday is just "take the time, you've earned it" - not annual leave. And I'm going to Formula 1, which I love, so there's that sense of recharging the batteries over those times and the benefit it brings.

But, aside from this, I ordinarily am good at switching off when I leave. I cross that threshold from the office to the outside world and I'm relaxed. Do you have a conscious approach to "shutting off" work when you leave?

 

I usually have no issue leaving work at work, but a couple of months ago I had a giant put in my group. The air must be truly thin up there, based upon his performance. So I vent about him at times, much to my wife's amusement. It's a long story. But take my advice, if you have to be a team lead, make sure there are no giants in the group.

 

I pictured you embracing the jet-set lifestyle *sniffs*

 

i actually find it really easy to shut off work-mode, no matter how stressful a particular day has been, but i think that has a lot to do with working at the same place for a long time and having a pretty high comfort level with most things that can possibly go wrong.

 

I wanted to respond to the poll but there's no 'none of the above' option.


In fairness, I do have an accruing bank of PTO and extended leave time. The PTO can be used for any reason--vacation, holidays, illness--and the extended leave for anything requiring a doctor's note and more than a week off. Both accrue pretty rapidly, but neither contribute to a work-life balance, as it's hard to plan a decent vacation if you need to save some time for potential sick days and national holidays that no, you're not expected to work. It's a weird policy.

 

Yeah I think that's a part of it. I'm 2.5yrs into this company but I work in risk management at a time where there's a lot going on so it's been a bit unavoidable of late. I do dumb things too, like check my phone when a work email pings off (the whole point of carrying two Galaxies was one is work, and therefore I can control the use of it...) at 9pm which I shouldn't.

How much do you think having a hobby etc outside of work is a key to your being able to balance your life?

 

i don't know how important having a hobby is. it can be helpful for me at times to have something else to refocus on, but that doesn't necessarily have to be a creative endeavor. i think fulfilling relationships with friends and family are probably the most important thing that i always sort of lean on. projects and things that i want to do on my own tend to get pushed to the back burner, but it's nice that they're there when i do have time.

 

You brought it full circle tom. Right back to the name of this place. Community.
Work.... leisure time.... the terms mean nothing if you don't consider the sense of community in a person's life.

 

Yeah on reflection I think I probably should have asked how important it was to have a "full life" outside of work - family, friends, hobbies, sports etc.

I know that when I separated from my ex-wife, I threw myself into work for 14h-15hrs a day and that was a necessary distraction because the other stuff was missing. It was also... unhealthy.