Right now I have four weeks of vacation plus three personal days. I think that when the next fiscal year begins in October I get bumped up to five weeks/three personal.
ETA: To expand:
I've been with my current company for about 17 years but as far as my vacation time and such they're counting the 3 years I spent with the previous company, which they bought out of the area.
When I get to those Five Weeks/3 Days I will maxed out on vacation time.
In addition to that time I also get a paid day off around the "major" holidays (New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas.) This day off can be taken the week before, during or after the holiday depending on scheduling works out. Right now it's essentially mandatory you use it, but in the past they allowed you to just work, essentially making double-time on that holiday.
Vacation time does not carry over between fiscal years.
In extreme circumstances it is permissible to cash-out a vacation week but only after you've already used one. But, again, this is for pretty extreme circumstances with our current director.
Right now, at four weeks I take a vacation once a quarter. When I hit five weeks I'll try to take a vacation once inside every 10 week period.
I used to not use the personal days as I preferred to use them as sick-days but I'm rarely sick enough to miss work and they started pressuring us to use our vacation time so, screw it, I attach a PD at the end of three vacation weeks.
I'm not sure what the "pattern" is for gaining personal time at our company but all full-time employees get it. New hires start with one week and no personal days, after one year they get two weeks and three personal days and build from there.
Got to say, it's really, really nice to have so much vacation time to take over the year and there are certainly times when I need it. Hardest thing is going back to the work at the end of it, usually that first day I'm pretty discombobulated and pretty much trying to readjust to the whole "work" thing.
It's surprising to me (though not really) that any company wouldn't have some-kind-of system in place to offer paid leave to their employees. I'm sure studies have been done and shown that giving your people some time off is good for their mental health, work place atmosphere not to mention an incentive to work with your company. And if you don't offer paid time off an employee is unlikely to just take un-paid time off because, well, our society runs on money and people can hardly afford to take time off from work without pay without impacting the household budget.
It's no surprise given how this country operates that paid leave isn't mandatory for employers in the States and if such a proposal were ever presented to Congress I'm sure the political-right would fight against it with their dying breath. (see: Minimum Wage.)
We're not machines and cannot just work and work and work without some kind of break and the two days a week (whether broken up over the week or over the weekend) plus the occasional major holiday isn't enough.
Giving them paid time off will make your employees happy and also be an attractive incentive for people to work for your company. Both of which will make your business stronger.