A vacation you can’t refuse

Mike, you are incorrect about Dell. They don’t force people to take time off at the end of the year.

It’s just that vacation time is not rolled over to the next year and cannot be sold back to the company.

I work for one of the Silicon valley companies mentioned out of a remote location. I agree that too much is being made of this. So I have to use up some of my PTO. I am greatfull have this job. It is a small thing that we as employees are being asked to do. If it results in less or no layoffs then its a well worth it. I for one am looking forward to not working these days.

I work for one of the companies. However, because my organization works with customer, we were told that our organization would be working but with a skeleton crew to deal with customer orders for year end

HP is sending many mixed signals to employees.

First, HP enjoyed profits of approx. $7B for the past nine months. Yes, $7B!

Second, HP made their third work force reduction of CY2008 during this holiday season cutting about 10% — and this 10% is NOT related to the EDS acquisition. Happy Holidays to this 10% — you no longer have a job in this great economy even though this 10% contributed to HP realizing the $7B profit for the past 9 months.

Third, HP cancelled employee pay raises for FY2009 (but I’m guessing executives still get bonuses from that $7B profit.)

Fourth, HP is stopping reimbursement of “home office” expenses for “home office” personnel — expenses such as telephone and internet service. I guess if “bank” executives can still get six-figure bonuses after getting billions from the bailout TARP funds, then HP doing what they are doing is not a “crime” — but possibly the workers need to speak out.

Fifth, HP’s HR VP said for field people to spend this extra time with family and no one needed to be checking voice mail or email during the holiday shut down. But wait, there’s more.

And sixth, HP’s VP of NA Sales, said no one in the field better lose a deal to the competition and give an excuse of the holiday shutdown.

Ahhh, ’tis the Holiday season and spirit!

I am an employee of a tech company that is requiring a paid time off at year end. They have made it flexible, and offered people with critical business requirements the opportunity to shift the actual time taken off. To me this is a godsend … of course I’d feel differently if it were unpaid, and I sympathize with those folks – but I can tell you, I look forward to a break that is really a break, with everyone else mostly standing down at the same time. This is not that big a deal, I know tech companies who have been doing it for years and their employees tend to relish it.

All we have to fear is fear itself. Fear of a dire situation is making people in society do things that give us something to worry about.

What you fail to mention here is that many companies have always done end-of-year “forced” vacations. HP has done this for years. Cisco has always made people with high PTO balances to take time off at the end of the year. As has Dell, IBM and many other tech giants. Furthermore, vacation time is a huge hit against the expenses and this is a way to cut down on that pool of dollars owed.

The media is making a mound out of a mole hill when it comes to tech companies closing down between Christmas and New Years. It’s really not that new or big of a practice, it just got some public face time due to the current economic conditions.