Will an Unlimited Vacation Policy Work at Your Company?
WHAT'S THIS? IMAGE: UNSPLASH/PIXABAY JIM BELOSIC for The Muse In a recent interview, Richard Branson, founder of The Virgin Group, announced a vacation “non-policy” that allows his personal staff — some 170 employees — to take as much vacation as they want, with no one keeping tabs. At ShortStack we have a similar vacation benefit, only we call it “take what you need.” Branson and I are in a serious minority: Only about 3% of businesses in the United States currently offer unlimited vacation, although some of the bigger players in the tech sector are hopping on the bandwagon, including Netflix, Zynga, Groupon, HubSpot, and Evernote. Branson says his policy is more humane than parsing out days off. And it is. But that's not why I offer unlimited vacation. I do so because, in my 13 years as an entrepreneur, I've learned that when you treat employees like grown-ups, they act like grown-ups . When employees know they are trusted to take vacation