Unlimited Vacation: Business Boon or Bust?
Unlimited time off was once a perk only found in trendy startup companies that wanted to foster an employee-centric culture, recruit great people, and keep payroll and finance as simple as possible. Today, that policy is creeping into the mainstream. There are real benefits to offering unlimited time off, but it's not without its potential complications.
Your People Will Be Happier
Knowing they can schedule family trips, attend events and meet personal obligations without worrying about job security makes your employees happier to be where they are.
Unlimited vacation policies can also include other paid time off (PTO). This means your employees can feel empowered to stay home and recover when they are sick. They won't feel compelled to come to work with a virus, out of fear they may need that day down the line for another emergency.
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In addition to promoting wellness and a people-first culture, unlimited vacation policies are also a strong recruiting tool. If your ideal candidate has to choose between your company and a competitor which starts them off with five days of vacation, who do you think is likely to land that candidate?
Say Goodbye to End-Of-The-Year Vacation Run
With traditional use-it-or-lose it vacation plans, people rush to take time off at the end of the year. This can create both a scheduling and a morale nightmare. If HR limits the number of people who can take off at one time, your employees will be unhappy when their vacation requests are rejected. They will blame the company, not themselves, when they lose their vacation at the end of the year.
You're probably thinking, "But if we let everyone take off whenever they want, this place will be a ghost town." Not necessarily. Virgin discovered their employees were much more thoughtful about the time they took off with an unlimited policy and they used their vacation more intermittently than under traditional rules. Giving people the freedom to choose often results in PTO being used much more efficiently.
Beware, Schedule Management Can Get Complicated
When an employee takes time off, work doesn't stop. Managers and leaders need to make certain that hours are covered, to ensure productivity remains high while simultaneously preventing non-exempt employees from racking up too much overtime. If everyone wants to take off the last week of the year to spend time with their families, things can get complicated.
Without clear policies in place, unlimited vacation can turn into a scheduling nightmare for supervisors and confusion for employees if their manager rejects their PTO request.
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Unlimited Vacation Requires Clear Rules and Communication
To prevent scheduling issues and rejection of PTO requests, your policy must be clearly communicated in writing and verbally so employees understand how they may use their unlimited time off. They need to understand how soon they must put in a request, why a request may be rejected and they need to feel comfortable there aren't "catches" hidden in the fine print. In fact, when German tech company Travis CI tried unlimited vacation, their employees were so wary of taking time they ended up using significantly less vacation than ever before and ended up getting more burned out.
Clear and direct communication is absolutely necessary to make sure the schedule remains intact and people don't feel they are being treated unfairly. It is also important to create a smooth transition. If employees under the old policy could cash out their accrued vacation time upon resigning or retiring, you need to implement some sort of transitional policy, a problem that led to Tribune Publishing revoking their unlimited policy just one week after announcing it.
Unlimited vacation time can be a powerful tool for boosting employee satisfaction and retention and recruiting new employees. But it is not without potential complications. A qualified staffing firm can help you navigate scheduling issues and provide seamless vacation coverage throughout the year -- whether you limit vacation or not. Bottom line? A sound policy and the right staffing partnership can help you create a stronger culture and happier employees.
