It's an interesting statement that something as completely awesome as unlimited time off whenever you want can be turned into a negative. I mean people in other sectors would kill for this. Yet here it's viewed as a potential tool of sxploitation. I think this is a symptom of a much bigger problem worth discussing. If I state unequivocally that there is an open ended no asterisk vacation policy and you say "you need to go further than that" am I really the one with the problem? Or do you need to look inward a little more and ask if you're at the right company/industry etc
Did you read the article? There are clear examples of how it could very much be a negative, including it causing people to take very little vacation time, and enabling managers to discriminate against minorities or other groups.
I read it thoroughly. Ask yourself two questions. I) if your company discriminates or exploits its workforce you've got bigger problems than set time vs unlimited. II) it confuses causation. Companies with set time off will still discriminate against employees if that's their DNA. So your back at "hey If my company gives unlimited time off and I still feel uncomfortable maybe I need to make a change" vs going on and on with ever more tweaks.
Discrimination can happen unintentionally, and it doesn't have to be limited to specific groups of people. A manager could have a rough month due to some family issues, and end up turning down more vacation requests during that month. That sort of thing. If you have a set number of vacation days, it becomes a lot harder to unintentionally discriminate, and a lot easier to notice intentional discrimination.
