Design our PTO and vacation policy
Your AI CEO ships the policy that fits your team — not the trendy one.
You'd think this is a 30-min decision — Astra runs the actual benchmark, models the cost, and saves you from the "unlimited PTO" trap.
The short answer
Astra designs your PTO policy by benchmarking your peers, modeling the cost and behavioral impact of each option, and drafting the final language. She asks 4 calibration questions (headcount, jurisdictions, current policy if any, founder bias toward unlimited vs fixed), benchmarks 15-20 comparable companies via public sources (handbooks, careers pages, Glassdoor), models 3 options for your team — fixed accrual, unlimited, hybrid (fixed minimum) — with cost, average days taken, burnout signals, and admin overhead per option, recommends one with reasoning, and drafts the policy language plus an internal rollout doc explaining the decision to your team. Most teams that use this avoid the "unlimited PTO = nobody takes time" trap and ship a policy that actually gets used.
How Astra actually does it
- 1Calibrate context
4 questions: headcount, jurisdictions (CA accrual rules differ from TX), current policy if any, founder bias on unlimited vs fixed.
- 2Benchmark peers
15-20 comparable companies (similar stage, industry, headcount). Pull from public handbooks, careers pages, Glassdoor reviews. Categorize by policy type.
WebSearch - 3Model 3 options
Fixed accrual, unlimited, hybrid (fixed minimum). Per option: estimated days taken, payroll cost, admin load, behavioral risk (burnout, hoarding, abuse).
- 4Recommend with reasoning
One recommendation grounded in your stage + culture. Explain why the others lose for your context. No "depends, here's a list" — make a real call.
- 5Draft policy + rollout
Final policy language for the handbook. Internal rollout doc explaining the decision to the team in plain English. Notion doc, ready to publish.
Notion
What it looks like in chat
A Notion doc with: 3 modeled options, peer benchmark, recommended policy with reasoning, final policy language for the handbook, and an internal rollout post for the team.
One-shot decision; revisit annually.
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Try this with AstraFrequently asked questions
Why does Astra push back on unlimited PTO?
Data, not opinion. Public studies (Namely, Lattice, Glassdoor) consistently show unlimited-PTO teams take fewer days than fixed-PTO teams — 4-6 days less on average. The signal "unlimited" reads as "don't take much" to most employees, especially early-career. Astra recommends unlimited only when culture explicitly defends taking time.
What about jurisdictional carve-outs?
California requires accrual tracking and payout on departure regardless of policy framing. Some EU countries mandate minimums (4 weeks). Astra builds these into the policy automatically based on your jurisdictions and flags any gotchas (e.g., "Texas allows use-it-or-lose-it; CA does not").
Can the policy include sick leave, parental leave, sabbaticals?
Yes — Astra drafts a complete time-off policy package: vacation, sick (mandated minimums per state), parental (recommend 12+ weeks at your stage), bereavement, jury duty, sabbatical (if you want to offer at 4-year tenure), and unpaid leave. All in one Notion doc with cross-references.
What if our team already has informal patterns?
Astra reads Slack/Lark for 90 days of time-off mentions to understand current behavior. If team already takes 18 days/year informally, codifying "15 minimum" is a downgrade signal. She'll surface the conflict and recommend matching or exceeding current informal practice.
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