Microsoft vacation policy

That's not unreasonable.

But.

It's atrocious that it's in written form. That immediately makes it more inflexible. Now, there should be good communication between the manager and the employee, which leads to notice times of that length.

Yes, you should - as a simple matter of curtousy and thinking ahead - notify your manager that you're taking a two week vacation around 3 months beforehand. However, the arbitray policy of a month before a three-day weekend and the one week-per-day on top of that is really rather sad.

It's another example of creeping beurocracy which, while sometimes useful, eliminates the point - or usefulness - of good managers. And generally kills innovation, fun, freedom, etc, on the job.

Sorry.

I think this is a horrible decision, however. Why the hell does the department head need to make a policy like this? Isn't there such a thing as trust for employees? Specifically, this should be up to each individual manager for each individual person on each individual team. "Equality" is not fair; fairness (and, incidentally, good management) is about extending to the individual (employee) what they need - which wil, naturally, vary from person to person.

Really. I suppose this proves, at least, the oft-repeated claim: Microsoft has bad middle manageemnt. Good people? Maybe. But making bad decisions.

gman wrote:

why do you care? Some people just find ANYTHING to (I need to watch my language) about Microsoft...

Happens in alot of other companies, as well.

Bad decisions have a way of becoming very popular... typically because it's harder to make the "good" decision. Bad decisions try to make things easier, but lose perspective.

For instance, this department head sounds like she(?)
s trying to make life easier for her and the database. Scheduling, project management, resource availability. Reduces planning overhead, and helps to limit "crunches" (too much work for a smaller amount of people).

Certaily a good motive. And one that she should, really, work towards. However, beurocracy is never the way to do this. Ever. (Not really true, but it's true in a vast majority of cases, so a rule is better).

Instead, the department head should leverage her lower-level managers to communicate the status of the project, ensure that the necessary work is accomplished, and work around that. That's what managers do (in part), and that's what they're paid to do: make everything run smoothly.

Each additional step of paperwork, each additional rule or regulation, acts as a roadblock for the manager. It reduces the manager's freedom, their ability to work around the project. Plus, it makes it harder (slower, more expensive, and less efficient) to do what the rules say; I doubt, for instance, that the manager has calculated the incremental cost of this new decree. What is the impact on employee morale, how does it affect the overall image of the company? It might (and probably is) be widely out of proporation with its signifiance. For instance, the department head may have drawn the ruling from the average amount of notice they have. What is the cost of processing each piece of paperwork, and where does it redirect the decision to? Is the decision the direct manager's? How much does it cost in employee time to fill out the form, gain the requisite information, and is it up to the department head to figure out if this overloads other employees, or what?

It *seems* like a simple solution to the problem the department head, and other project managers, are facing. But the problem is what it does the the process. By solving one problem, you've added in many more - some unforseen. And it becomes even easier to compound the error, because the temptation is to try and "fix" these new problems with the same process: more beurocracy.

You'd think they'd teach these things in Management 101. God knows it's in every management book every written.