Is it a common practice at companies to make employees take PTO for shutdown? It's crazy to me that between July and Dec this year Cisco is forcing us to use two weeks of PTO when they don't have that generous of a PTO policy to begin with. How do other companies handle this?
28 replies (most recent on top)
PTO is a pending expense on the balance sheet. Mandatory PTO/shutdown started during the financial crisis when the stock crashed to 84k employees which is a far bigger driver than LR payout for 4k people.
they claimed to pay in the top 70th percentile of industry wages.
Do you think everyone within Cisco is in this percentile?
And also stop crying for getting more than minimum wage in the US. Cisco is by no means obligated to pay above minimum wage!
LOL, you're absolutely funny. Or stupid. Cisco has an obligation to its shareholders to make a profit. A company can't stay in business if it can't attract, and keep, a qualified workforce. There is no way tech professionals are going to work for minimum wage. Cisco has to pay a competitive wage. Used to, they claimed to pay in the top 70th percentile of industry wages. I have no idea what percentile they're at now, but I'm guessing it's at best 50 or lower.
Stop crying. If you get more than 10 days off a year in the US you should be happy.
And also stop crying for getting more than minimum wage in the US. Cisco is by no means obligated to pay above minimum wage!
Stop crying. If you get more than 10 days off a year in the US you should be happy.
A company has the legal right to mandate how and when employees can use pto so unfortunately cisco is in the clear it just su-ks
You're absolutely right, they do have a LEGAL right. But it doesn't mean it's right. This is the first company I've ever worked at that mandated PTO during shutdown - better yet, not once but TWICE!
A company has the legal right to mandate how and when employees can use pto so unfortunately cisco is in the clear it just su-ks
These are your accrued PTO - your money. You should not be forced on how to spend your PTO. Just because the July shutdown works for you because "you were going to take it off anyway", doesn't work for everyone. What if I wanted to spend most of my PTO in the fall because my daughter or son was having a baby? I probably wouldn't have many days left after the forced shutdown.
People really need to stop assuming. I think that's one of societys ugliest trait.
@1lbf+1sYx5KYB, I'm glad you enjoy both the shutdowns, not having to get someone to back you up, and not having a mountain of work to return to, but those that support production systems, or customer facing systems, still have to be "on-call" to support those systems and don't get on-call pay during that time because "we're on mandatory PTO".
And, because most of the "support" teams that I/we open cases with are in India, where they're not having to shutdown, they either try to contact us during the mandatory PTO periods or they close our cases because they can't reach us and we have to open all new cases when we get back or work the cases with India during our time off.
@1dip+1sYx5KYB, , welcome to Cisco. You haven't been here long because PTO is mandated every (calendar) year-end. And the last couple of years, they've added additional days of mandatory PTO than what was published on the final Fiscal year calendar at the start of the Fiscal year.
I remember the first time Cisco introduced the mandatory PTO and had it as a summer shutdown. I don't recall if they made it a specific set of days, or just x number of days during the month of July, but they didn't give us much warning about it and many people had already scheduled family vacations before or after the mandated window and it cost them all their PTO.
I personally don't mind the year-end PTO because I usually take my time off then anyway, but I prefer to split it more before and after Christmas instead of all after Christmas. I wish the summer mandate was x # of days in the summer quarter and not around the week of Independence Day. Airfares are higher, hotels are higher (or booked), popular vacation spots are over-crowded, etc.
When I was first LR'd from Cisco, I took a contractor role at a financial company. They were closed every Federal holiday because that's what the banking industry does. What they failed to tell me during the interview process was that they also require every contractor to not work on the business days before and after every Federal holiday because they don't know what day, or days, a manager might take off around the holiday weekend to make it a 4 or 5 day weekend, and if the manager can't be there to "watch" you work, then you can't work. That meant that there were 11 Federal holidays, and a day on either side means that I couldn't work/wasn't paid for 33 calendar days per year outside of any time off I wanted to take at my discretion. I didn't stay there very long due to that policy.
Summer anyway should be there to go to the beach, mountains, valley, whatever rocks your boat to drink beer, cocktails, whatever rocks your boat, to then b@ng the girl,boy , whatever rocks your boat next to you
Agree with below, I personally like both of the shutdowns. Don’t need to ask anyone to back me up, can relax and enjoy without the stress of a mountain of work waiting for me after PTO. But I get why some may not like it.
Cisco's very liberal PTO policy is one of the reasons I'm still sticking around (worked at a startup with 2 weeks vacation, love having a month a year, and an extra week after 5 years). Not to mention the extra days off and many holidays - after all of them, probably about 2 months a year. High contributor here, and likely wouldn't stick around if they change it. Tech has already figured out unlimited PTO means "no pto".
Am I the only person here that likes shutdown? No worries about my work getting behind, and two times a year where the company moves to a snails pace to let people catch up. It's nice to leave for a while knowing I'm coming back to an empty inbox.
Cisco winter shutdown is from week of Christmas, for a red badge shutdown will end until Jan 15, that is 3 weeks shutdown without pay, plus 12 holidays, 5 Cisco me days, and another july 1 to july 5 summer shutdown, red badges are not getting paid for these shutdowns, holidays and Cisco me days
They do it to off-load the days because if you quit or get laid off, they must pay out your unused PTO as part of your total compensation package. (That's why many companies have moved to "unlimited PTO" because they don't have to book it as cash.)
the REAL reason we have to do mandatory pto is because of the RAMPANT pto theft at this company. More often than not, people are hitting the accrual limit - BECAUSE THEY ARE TAKING PTO AND NOT RECORDING IT.
Cry me a river. Red badges don't get paid for it and usually have to take more days than the blue badges.
Last Winter employees took mandatory extra PTO to save jobs from being eliminated and the company proceeded with LRs.
Source?
Last Winter employees took mandatory extra PTO to save jobs from being eliminated and the company proceeded with LRs. Ladies and gentlemen it’s LR season.
It is not common. Cisco is doing it because the company has no growth, is cheap, and is desperately trying to avoid August layoff this year because that would damage the company’s ability to continue rampant h1b exploitation by filing perm applications.
This is the first time in my career I’ve had mandated pto dates. It’s absurd.
Cisco is for bottom 10% of IT workforce. Why would you want to be around with those bottoms?
Having worked at three other places after Cisco, I can confirm the vacation plan is very rich. Be careful what you ask for.
Be careful what you wish for. The next step is to go to "unlimited" PTO, which means you don't accrue anything (and therefore nothing on the books that Cisco has to carry as a liability). Which means NO payout if you leave or get laid off.
The part of that whole debacle that made me mad was the original phrasing from the ELT. Like it was for everyone’s benefit. Lmao. Anything for the balance sheet.
We were not awarded the best place to work in 2024. So, you can't complain about introducing third-tier best practices in 2024.
What do you mean?? we won the "best place to work" award twice in a row and each employee had to fill out an anonymous optional survey.
Cisco is a third-tier company. It's crazy that someone would work at a third-tier company then complain about their policies. Work at a better company.