Second thoughts about “unofficial” vacation time

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

I joined my current company over 2 years ago. At that time I was working for another company in the same field and receiving 4 weeks vacation. During salary negotiations, the hiring manager at my new company told me that it was impossible for them to match 4 weeks vacation "officially" because of "company policy" supposedly stated that only "top executives" got that much, but he would give me 3 weeks and allow me to take an extra week "off the books" (i.e. not reporting the days in "the HR system"). Of course this arrangement was not written down.

I have been doing exactly that for the past 2 years, but I am getting increasingly uncomfortable with this arrangement. Normally, I prefer doing business in an upfront transparent way. I have brought it up with him during performance appraisals but my boss has simply repeated that the "policy" won't allow him to make the 4 weeks official.

On the other hand, it has been "working" so far and I certainly don't want to cause enough trouble that I will have to really be limited to 3 weeks. What are my options to deal with this? What is the risk of just maintaining the status quo? Does my boss even have a legal right to make such arrangements? If higher ups in the company find out, could they somehow go after me in court to make me pay back my "extra" vacation days?

manpreet 2 years ago

I would be very uncomfortable with this situation.

I have seen a few situations where unofficial agreements to break the rules have been used against the person later, when a company decides to downsize or that person fell out of favour.

But, more importantly, what happens when your boss gets offered a better job? There is no reason to believe that your unofficial holiday will be honoured by his replacement. I've been stung by this with unofficial promises of "You're right, you are underpaid here. We'll address that at the next pay review."

I live in the UK, so 4-5 weeks' holiday is normal here and this situation is not common. And I certainly don't know what your legal situation is.

But I have met Americans in the past who have negotiated extra holidays in return for less money. That would seem to be a much more sensible solution. Perhaps discuss this when your next pay review comes up, see if your boss would be willing to give you a higher raise such that you can use the difference to negotiate official extra days.