How to hack your calendar for more vacation by 'PTO-maxxing'

The average U.S. private-sector worker with at least one year at a job receives 11 days of paid leave annually. Many people struggle to fully disconnect from work even when they have time off. A report from Blink uses the U.S. federal holiday calendar to suggest ways to extend time away by taking PTO around mandated days off. The approach is framed as “PTO maxxing,” where employees build vacations around holidays to feel like they get more time off than they actually use. Examples include taking PTO around the Fourth of July to create four- or five-day breaks using one or two PTO days, and taking PTO before Thanksgiving or on New Year’s Eve. Burnout prevention is presented as a benefit, but many workers do not take their available time off, with salaried workers more likely than hourly workers to use it.

"The report comes from Blink, a mobile-first employee experience platform, which analyzed the U.S. federal holiday calendar to show employees how they can "hack" their PTO allowance to get the most out of it. By building vacations around mandated days off, the idea is that workers can feel like they're getting a lot more time away from work. In reality, they're just using their PTO creativity-or "PTO maxxing.""

"The report came up with an exact calendar that employees can use to structure their PTO. One example is building around the Fourth of July. In the case of the midsummer holiday, the PTO strategy is to take off Thursday, July 2, and/or Monday, July 6. The result is a four- or five-day vacation that uses only one or two days of PTO. Other examples include taking off the Wednesday before Thanksgiving or New Year's Eve (which falls on a Thursday this year) for an extended break."

""Strategically spreading vacation days around federal holidays creates more breaks to prevent burnout before it starts," Blink COO Lauren Burns said in a press release. Given burnout is a massive work-related issue, with some studies suggesting that around 82% of employees are at risk, PTO-maxxing seems like a crafty way to combat office drudgery."

"However, there may be a missing link between having vacation days and actually using them. A 2023 Pew Research Center report found that more than 4 in 10 workers (46%) don't actually take their time off to begin with. Salaried workers are far more likely to take time off compared to hourly workers (52% compared to 39%)."

Read at Fast Company