The New York Times has an interesting article on vacation time practices at IBM. The company doesn't track vacation. Every worker gets three weeks, but they don't have to submit requests to use them, plan them in advance, or keep track of how much they've taken. They make informal arrangements with supervisors, leave some contact info, and jet.
Netflix is even better. They don't offer a set number of vacation days. You can take as many as you need, so long as you're getting your work done. "When you have a work force of fully formed professionals who have been working for much of their life,” Patty McCord, the chief talent officer of Netflix, said, “you have a connection between the work you do and how long it takes to do it, so you don't need to have the clock-in and clock-out mentality.”
But there's a dark side here too. Having a set or tracked number of vacation days meant the company would encourage you to take them, or cash them out. If don't have a set number and they're not tracked, you're not encouraged, nor can you transform them into salary:
