Virgin Group founder Richard Branson has introduced a new company policy that lets his personal staff take as much vacation time as they like, whenever they like.
Branson announced the policy in a blog post earlier this week. He says that because flexible working hours have changed where and when we work, most employees are no longer working on a strict schedule.
"If working nine to five no longer applies, then why should strict annual leave (vacation) policies?" Branson said in the post.
The British billionaire said he read about the policy in a Daily Telegraph article about Netflix, forwarded to him by his daughter.
Netflix had adopted the policy, which allows all salaried staff to take holidays whenever they want, for as long as they want.
Employees don't need to seek prior approval and nobody in the company is keeping track of the number of days a particular worker has taken off.
The idea is that it is up to the employee alone to decide when they should take a break and for how long.
Ideally, the employee will only take leave when they feel "100 per cent comfortable that they and their team are up to date on every project and that their absence will not in any way damage the business – or, for that matter, their careers!" Branson writes.
Part of the rationale behind the policy came from Netflix recognizing that new technologies such as smartphones and tablets often means that employees are working from all different places at all different hours, Branson said.
"If the company was no longer able to accurately track employees' total time on the job, why should it apply a different and outmoded standard to their time away from it?" he wrote.
Branson added that he was so inspired by the "simple" and "smart" Netflix initiative that he decided to adopt the same policy for Virgin employees on a small number of staff members working for him in the U.K. and the U.S.
"Assuming it goes as well as expected, we will encourage all our subsidiaries to follow suit, which will be incredibly exciting to watch," Branson said.
Supporters of work environments that buck traditional policies say minimally structured work environments can boost employee morale and productivity.
Bold Innovation Group in Winnipeg doesn't offer unlimited vacation, but does offer employees games, free lunches and a relaxed dress code.
"It's a part of life, it's not just you're coming to work and you're going home. It's not nine to five anymore, it's a lifestyle," Bold Innovation's Yvan Boisjoli told CTV Winnipeg. "If you're getting peak performance for offering this type of benefit or perk, then it's all good."
But Karen Keppler, a business professor at the University of Winnipeg, said that while the concept is nice, it may be hard to implement in companies where there are deadlines every day.
"Job security is a big thing, especially for these competitive entrepreneurial type of people that they're offering it to," she said.
With files from CTV Winnipeg
