More companies are introducing unlimited vacation for their employees. This, of course, is on top of flexible work hours where employees are free to choose their own work hours. The idea behind such work place policies is that employees are responsible adults who will decide to do the right thing and not abuse such policies.
While it is true that employees decide to do the right thing and don't abuse such policies, recent research has shown that employees don't really prefer such policies.
While they sound great in theory, employers (and managers) can make or break the effectiveness of such policies by the cultural norms they prescribe and the precedents they set.
In the research, the top reason for employees not preferring such policies is that they don't want to feel guilty about taking more time off than someone else or come in later than most others. And the cultural norms of the work place tend to make them feel guilty when they do so.
When someone is taking a vacation, they want to do it in a guilt-free manner. And it is much easier to do that when there is a prescribed quota of vacation days and they are using that.
So, now, some companies have started to address this and are giving their employees the option at the start of each year to either choose an unlimited vacation plan or a prescribed vacation plan so that nobody is put in a situation that they don't want to be.
This is a great example of how personal choice and inclusive policy making is progressing at the modern work place.
I've been reading about work place policy design for best results, remote work and flex work policies at various companies. With the advent of seamless videoconferencing and Slack, I would have expected remote work and flex work policies to be more prevalent. However, that doesn't seem to be the case.
I still haven't found convincing reasons as to why that is.
What's the policy at your work place?
While it is true that employees decide to do the right thing and don't abuse such policies, recent research has shown that employees don't really prefer such policies.
While they sound great in theory, employers (and managers) can make or break the effectiveness of such policies by the cultural norms they prescribe and the precedents they set.
In the research, the top reason for employees not preferring such policies is that they don't want to feel guilty about taking more time off than someone else or come in later than most others. And the cultural norms of the work place tend to make them feel guilty when they do so.
When someone is taking a vacation, they want to do it in a guilt-free manner. And it is much easier to do that when there is a prescribed quota of vacation days and they are using that.
So, now, some companies have started to address this and are giving their employees the option at the start of each year to either choose an unlimited vacation plan or a prescribed vacation plan so that nobody is put in a situation that they don't want to be.
This is a great example of how personal choice and inclusive policy making is progressing at the modern work place.
I've been reading about work place policy design for best results, remote work and flex work policies at various companies. With the advent of seamless videoconferencing and Slack, I would have expected remote work and flex work policies to be more prevalent. However, that doesn't seem to be the case.
I still haven't found convincing reasons as to why that is.
What's the policy at your work place?
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