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September 21, 2023

Grant Thornton Making Some Tweaks to Its Unlimited PTO Policy

grant thornton compensation 2017

Last time we checked on Grant Thornton’s unlimited PTO policy, we learned that it was having at least one desired effect: people were taking more time off. The median number of PTO days taken jumped from 17.4 to 19.1.

However, the comments from that article suggested that things were getting a bit out of hand. Here’s one example:

The problem is that some people (namely the underperforming tools who no one wants on their job and thus sit unassigned in summer) took too much time off pre busy season and then continued their greed streak into the summer (peak unassigned time), jeopardizing their chargeable hour goals. Now our “market territory” is extremely concerned with everyone hitting their chargeable hour goals and scheduling PTO has become worse than trying to order deli meat in the grocery store.

The missing-chargeable-hour-goal problems seems to have been one of the unintended consequences of this policy.  And it’s enough of a problem that the firm has decided to make a few “refinements.” A GT insider has shared the following internal message with Going Concern:

Grant-Thornton-unlimited-PTO

One item also worth noting is the “Appreciation Days.” Another comment from the previous post suggested that the Appreciation Days were included in GT’s calculation of the flexible time off, therefore inflating the statistics. Now that Appreciation Days are no longer a thing, it’ll be interesting to see if the number of days taken will keep pace.

With busy season edging to a close, hopefully all you GT Career Captains can make the necessary adjustments.

Reactions are welcome.

Earlier:
Grant Thornton: New Unlimited PTO Policy Not Designed to Get People to Take Less Vacation
Grant Thornton Should Pay Its People to Take Vacation

Image: Raysonho /Wikimedia Commons

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