should I tell an employee she should take less time off if she wants better projects?

A reader writes:

I work in an industry notorious for poor work-life balance.

Our company has an unlimited PTO policy, with most people on the team taking about 15-20 days, usually no more than five straight days at a time. (So one week off per quarter, just about)

I have a team member who has asked for feedback. She wants to grow and be assigned more high-profile, visible projects. The quality of her work is average to slightly above average, so there’s room for growth there. On top of this, the main thing I believe is preventing her from achieving these goals is that people perceive her to be on vacation all the time. I’d say she’ll end up taking around 30 days (six weeks off) this year, and unlike most members of the team, more than a full office week at a time. Management never denies her the days off, and since she’s not on more high-profile projects, the coverage has not been a problem.

Like I said, our industry culture is extreme and we push ourselves to burnout. It’s really not sustainable at the end of the day, so it’s honestly refreshing to see her try to have a personal life. Our office encourages us to have time off (within reason), and because we technically have unlimited PTO, she’s not breaking policy. But her personal life is not aligning with what she wants to achieve professionally. Is it poor advice for me to suggest she should take less vacation to prove she’s capable of handling more visible projects?

Well … this isn’t quite “you can take the time off if you want it, but we’re going to hold it against you,” but it’s close. If she’s taking too much time off within the context of your culture and industry expectations, she deserves to know that. If she keeps asking for time off and it keeps getting approved, it’s not unreasonable that she thinks it’s fine. (And yes, people should look around and observe norms and calibrate accordingly, particularly when it’s a field-wide expectation, but management has a role to play there too.)

Now, maybe the amount of time off she’s taking is fine for her current role, and it’s only a problem if she’s looking to take on different projects. That’s more fair! In that case, you should very clearly spell out how this works in your company. For example: “I want to be up-front that to be assigned to projects like X and Y, you’d likely need to take less time off than you do currently. Right now my sense is that there’s a perception that you’re gone a lot, which would be an obstacle to putting you on more high-profile work. So realistically, you’d need to decide if you’re willing to use less vacation in order to be considered for those projects, or whether that’s not a trade-off that’s worth it to you.”

Think of it as sharing the playbook that everyone else is using, so she can make the right decisions for herself.

For what it’s worth: if the 15-20 days a year that most people take includes sick leave as well as vacation, that’s really low and I’d urge your company to reconsider the way they frame their policy, because that is not what new hires are going to envision when they hear “unlimited time off,” even in an industry notorious for poor work-life balance.

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