What would you do, if your boss told you, that you could take an unlimited time off? Pack your bags. Hasta la vista, see you in three months?
To my surprise, I discovered that several companies have very liberal vacation policies.
The Most Important Is To Get Work Done
Many companies are already flexible on the working hours and from where you work. Why control number of days you take time to travel or relax? The most important is that the job gets done, not the number of hours you work!
If you want to work smarter, check out my series of «Get Work Done» blog posts!
5 days or 5 weeks
There are big differences between countries, when it comes to how many days of paid vacation, a full-time employee is entitled to. According to wikipedia, China has only five days. In Norway, we have five weeks! In the US, many doesn’t have a paid vacation. No wonder, the country is often called the «no vacation nation».
3 Companies With Flexible Vacation Policies!
Twitter has a non-accrual vacation time policy. To Fortune.com, Brian “Skip” Schipper, Vice President of Human Resources says: It’s a policy adopted in the spirit of trust and empowerment.
Virgin let all salaried staff to take time off, when they want, as long as they want. You don’t even have to ask or keep track of days. I’m not surprised! CEO Richard Branson is a pioneer in many fields, also in this area!
General Electric empowers employees to take the time they need, when they need it. Susan Peters, Senior Vice President of Human Resources at GE recently shared a LinkedIn post about it.
Why Is Unlimited Vacation Good?
- Empower your employees to take responsibility
- Treat employees as individuals
- Give flexibility, you can take a longer vacation some years and shorter other years
- Easier to maintain a work-life balance
- A recruitment carrot and to retain staff
Why Might Unlimited Vacation Be A Challenge?
- If you are a workaholic, you might not take any time off at all. In the long run, this is not good for you (or your family)
- You might be affected by the number of vacation days that your boss or colleagues take. Eventually a company culture evolves, and it might not fit your lifestyle
- Unlimited vacation sounds great, but make sure you read all the legal stuff written in small letters
- For the company, it can be difficult to verify that the work actually gets done according to the expected standards
Cecilia 🙂 – with 1 week of vacation to go
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