back to article HP breaks for Xmas week - aka 'staff hols' - source

HP has reportedly flicked the switch on its main sites and required employees to take holiday leave between Christmas and New Year, in a move to cut labour and running costs, a source tells us. An operator on HP's switchboard confirmed to El Reg that the company's main sites will be closed until 5 January. The insider told us …

  1. Josh Cain

    No surprise there

    As a former HP plod the mandatory holiday office closure is nothing new. We were required to hold on to vacation to accommodate the holiday closure. As a road warrior I didn't mind, as around Christmastime travelling becomes more of a nightmare than it already is. From a business point of view it makes sense as well, as the majority of client staffers are out on holiday, and little gets done.

    1. Preston Munchensonton
      Paris Hilton

      Re: No surprise there

      Given that the closure has been a yearly thing for a while (since at least 2011), why exactly is this news? Other than the major hard-on from El Reg to kick HP in the nuts as often as possible?

  2. Dan Paul

    Exactly, makes sense

    Who in their right mind actually thinks that ANYTHING productive will get done during the Holidays anyway? Better to shutdown than overwork a skeleton crew.

    Scheduled shutdowns often happen in certain businesses, it's easier for the company and often easier for the employees and customers.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Exactly, makes sense

      And demanding that your employees use half their annual vacation to accomodate it ?

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Exactly, makes sense

        More like a 1/3rd if they are on minimum 20 days annual leave since Xmas, Boxing and New Years days are already holidays, at least here in most of the UK. 2nd also, in Scotland. And if those days fall on a weekend, you get the equivalent weekdays off instead.

        It may be different in other parts of the world. Especially those who don't do Xmas or have a different new year.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Exactly, makes sense

        Half? We get more than 6 days!

        We've always taken 3 days over xmas (I would even if we didn't have to). The only difference this year is with New Year on a Thursday, we've been asked to take one more day (Friday) and return Monday. Which I would have anyhow.

      3. Bluenose

        Re: Exactly, makes sense

        You must be American, in the UK 4 days does not equal 50% of vacation

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Exactly, makes sense

        >And demanding that your employees use half their annual vacation to accomodate it ?

        and what's wrong with that? :)

        Throughout my entire career dating back to the 1970's, the problem has been getting IT people to actually use their holiday entitlement...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Exactly, makes sense

      You must be the HP guy who thought that's a good idea to squeeze few bucks to get your OWN bonus. If it makes sense for business to shut down, shut it down but don't force people to use their OWN VACATION. Some companies give this time as a bonus for the employees! This is 2015! Employees are not slaves!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Exactly, makes sense

        >Employees are not slaves!

        Exactly and they will work some place else better with a brighter future like say most other places. Word gets around and yet another problem HP has is its reputation on how it treats its employees. No way I would even bother interviewing with them or Intel strictly based on their reputations from word of mouth from friends and colleagues.

      2. erikbartlow

        Re: Exactly, makes sense

        I currently work for HP in the Americas,and the shutdown had been going on since before 2007. I compel agree that the employees shouldn't be responsible for trading vacation while HP saves money by choosing the doors. However, if they didn't do the shutdown i suspect more people,good people,would lose their jobs. So I've become accustomed to the sacrifice as have most other HPers.

  3. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    HP - Invent

    Soon they will lay claim to have invented 'Wakes Week' or 'Trades Fortnight'

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wakes_week

    for those who don't remember

  4. Joe Gurman

    Fairly traditional practice

    Large firms in the area such as Lockheed Martin have been doing the same for decades. Ironically, those who have work on mission proposals to NASA, which are often due just after New Year's Day, end up writing on their holiday leave, and the company gleefully saves the cost of bid and proposal work.

  5. Alt0n

    Slow news week

    Not much happening in the El Reg office either, is there?

    1. Doctor Evil

      Re: Slow news week

      "Not much happening in the El Reg office either, is there?"

      But there should be! There's a website/UI to rework because there are still bloody clip-art pictures eclipsing useful text all over it!

  6. Spaller

    Nothing to see here

    Many SV companies shut down at Xmas. Ours shuts down each year, but maybe not next year since we got rid of vacation.

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Re: Nothing to see here

      Got rid of vacation?

      Care to explain for those of us who live in places where there are laws that prevent this sort of thing.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Nothing to see here

        Even the US I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be legal for a company to not have any time off. Maybe he works for one of those companies with ping pong tables and masseuses at their disposal that did away with vacation by trusting employees to take time off as needed and not abuse the option? If you have one of those hyperactive startup cultures where people work 90 hours a week, it seems silly to allocate them x days of vacation when they've already worked more than the average person does in a year by the first of June.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Nothing to see here

        @ Steve Davies 3

        New fashion in Silly Valley, quite a few companies doing that. Effectively, vacation allowance is removed. You can take any amount of paid leave you like (yes - exactly that). You have to deliver all of your deliverables on time and hit your performance ratings. That's all :)

        So if you want to bugger off on hols for 60 days a year, you can do so, provided that you _DELIVER_.

        It is quite nice, but makes the life of a middle manager hell as they have to ensure that everyone has clear deliverables to keep this thing not spiralling out of control. It is also mostly USA so far, it will be interesting to see it applied in Europe.

        Anon - my company is considering it from this year :)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Nothing to see here

          >but makes the life of a middle manager hell as they have to ensure that everyone has clear deliverables

          And that exactly right there is why this will be a no go for many companies. I can see it working for a strictly software development house but for many people many of their deliverables end up being solving business problems that pop up unexpectedly during the work day. Also the real reason companies are trying this is to guilt workers into to taking even less vacation is my guess.

          1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

            Re: Nothing to see here

            It's easy for middle managers - they just have to pressure their employees into never taking any vacation. The result is that people take "vacation" by leaving and taking a break for a few weeks before they take the next job.

            But that's ok because having key technical staff leave and trying to replace them in this market is a great cost saving.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Nothing to see here

              >having key technical staff leave and trying to replace them in this market is a great cost saving.

              Must live in the UK. Here stateside truly competent technical staff are expensive to replace though with Baby Boomers retiring I guess it will only get worse though. Ask Sony how important it is to have competent technical staff instead of offshoring for pennies on the dollar.

              1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge
                Joke

                Re: Nothing to see here

                >Must live in the UK.

                Where people understand irony

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Nothing to see here

      Yep, my experience is the same. If you are on a client project, then your holiday is when the client shuts down. It does mean I haven't been able to plan a family holiday for years - but there are downsides as well...

  7. Mattjimf

    ummm...

    Am I missing a week between Christmas and the 5th of January?

    Is next Monday (a week from today) not the 5th of January?

    Or were they off last week as well, and El Reg just got round to seeing the complaining email?

  8. Number6

    Extra Vacation

    I remember in the good old days(tm) when my company introduced a mandatory Christmas shutdown, they also gave us an extra five days paid time off with the proviso that the company reserved the right to dictate when we could take them. The festive period normally used up three of those, occasionally four, and as most people took the time off anyway, it was a net gain.

    Of course, back then, employee welfare and benefits were taken into account. Perhaps if HP and others were to do that again, they'd get more motivated employees and they'd do a bit better.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I work for HP and we have been asked to take 1 extra day - 2nd Jan - over what we normally have to take, as the 2nd is a Friday. So, thats a total of 4 days (3 between Xmas and new year + the 2nd Jan) - not 2 weeks.

    It seemed reasonable to me.

  10. Terry Cloth
    Coat

    Audit time?

    Some outfits (notably banks and other money-handlers) force employees to take a week or two annually so they can catch people tweaking the books (since they won't be around to make the sums come out right).

    Maybe HP is doing a company-wide computer security audit?

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Audit time?

      I don't know which is funnier, the idea that HP have any staff that would know how to cook the books, or that they might have anyone competent to catch them

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nothing to see, move along

    As above, I've been working at HP for more than 25yr and can't remember there not being a shutdown between Christmas and New Year. And the only mandatory is four days, one of which (2 Jan) can be taken from either 2014 or 2015.

    Not a problem in my book. My guess - this came from a grumpy TUPEd outsourcing colleague.

    Move along.

    1. Mpeler
      Holmes

      Re: Nothing to see, move along

      Then you must remember the Y2K project - forced NON-vacation. There were some folks in IT who couldn't take vacation for months on either side of the new year (new century was 2001 to satisfy the pedants out there :) ). Have to say that work was worth it, considering the, erm, issues that were found (albeit a lot fewer that some folks were expecting).

      More of a problem than the forced vacation were the years going under reduced salaries and the capping of vacation accounts, i.e. use it or lose it. The claim was employee health and well-being, etc., but in point of fact the beancounter types were looking at it as being a carried liability. That's the point at which the REAL HP disappeared, IMHO....

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    As an ex-HP person I know that whilst it makes some sense to close an office where possible for those of us that worked mostly from home or on the road, forcing a company wide closure does not. More importantly I know it also pissed off a lot of customers.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    In other news...

    really with articles like this, I suggest El Reg apply a similar policy...

  14. jimbo60

    nothing new here

    HP has been doing this for several years now. There are 3-4 days of holiday time off in there (depending on the year), the rest we have to take with vacation days. As an HP employee, I really like it, because I can take the entire holiday period off and when I go back to work I'm not buried under a mountain of backlog and emails, because everyone else was off at the same time.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nothing has really changed then

    I'm an ex HP employee and remember this happening when I was there. While ok for some, as somebody who doesn't really celebrate the festivities, is home based, works on an account that still operates during this period and would rather use those days for a proper holiday when things are actually open and travel doesn't cost a small fortune this really bugged me.

    I'm working today... and using the time to catch up on compulsory training and stuff that is hard to do when the phones are constantly ringing.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yawn...

    seriously are you now publishing stories like these. This is a fairly common practice in many companies and has happened at HP for many years. Many companies follow this as well. Could it be that your source is an idiot...

  17. EarthDog

    Old news

    This has been going on for years. C'mon Reg. You can do better than that. How about something up-to-date?

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    non-story

    I have just left HP after spending 9 years there and each and every year there was a shut down period. I worked for a business unit which was very active over the shut down period and we always received an exemption to the shutdown period. Applying for the exemption was as simple as sending a form off to the payroll department so they'd know to pay you ordinary hours. There is no story here...

  19. Mr Dogshit
    Facepalm

    What a non story

    This has been HP company policy for literally decades,

  20. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    Man that's shitty...

    Closing down around holidays? Makes sense. Demanding people use their paid time off to do it? Umm, no.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Okay, let's ask a simple question.

    Do you object to being forced to take holiday, or would you prefer to be unemployed for being an uncooperative employee?

    Different questions. But with the same answer.

  22. John Tserkezis

    This happend just before christmas at a company I worked for.

    We were told we couldn't have any more than 2 weeks unaccounted for leave, so we had to eat up anything we had left over so far. Didn't matter that this was standard practice in other firms, and who cares about 5 weeks of holiday anyway?

    Found out later, some employees, had collected several months worth of holidays, and left the employer in the lurch for three months in a row while they were froliciking somewhere.

  23. Man Mountain

    No story here. This happens every year! And having moved from IBM, I love it as it used to be a real pain in the backside there ... but then again, 31st December is their year end. As for being forced to take time off, you are given 25 days of which HP can mandate up to 4! Hardly Draconian! And carry over is at BU discretion too.

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