Unlimited holiday: the rise of leave without limits

Ditch­ing a tra­di­tion­al sys­tem of fixed annu­al leave in favour of unlim­it­ed paid hol­i­day is becom­ing increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar with employ­ers – and their staff – around the globe. For some firms, the move has been prompt­ed by their enforced adop­tion of remote work­ing. For oth­ers, it’s always been the pre­ferred approach.

“We’ve had our pol­i­cy in place from day one,” recalls Jen­ny Biggam, co-founder of media agency the7stars, which has allowed staff to take as much hol­i­day as they want since it began trad­ing in 2005. “When we start­ed, I agreed with the oth­er founders to ‘just let each oth­er know’ when­ev­er we were tak­ing hol­i­day. We thought this was real­ly lib­er­at­ing, so we just kept doing it as the com­pa­ny grew.”

The con­cept is rel­a­tive­ly nov­el to Bum­ble, cre­ator of the epony­mous dat­ing and social net­work­ing app. The com­pa­ny start­ed offer­ing its employ­ees unlim­it­ed hol­i­day in June after grant­i­ng every­one a week off. 

“The past year has been an impor­tant time for us to reflect on the ways we work and how we can best sup­port our teams around the world,” says its pres­i­dent, Tariq Shaukat. “It has become increas­ing­ly clear that the way we need to work has changed.”

Oth­er new per­ma­nent ben­e­fits added by Bum­ble include bereave­ment leave in the event of a mis­car­riage and time off for car­ers and vic­tims of domes­tic vio­lence. More­over, the week off for all staff will become a bian­nu­al occur­rence.

Reflect­ing on employ­ees’ respons­es to the first com­pa­ny-wide hol­i­day, Shaukat says: “A num­ber of peo­ple said: ‘I didn’t have to wor­ry con­stant­ly about what I was miss­ing – I could actu­al­ly dis­con­nect. I had no idea how bad­ly I’d been vaca­tion­ing before that.’ Our new poli­cies reflect what real­ly mat­ters.”

A key advan­tage of offer­ing unlim­it­ed hol­i­day is that it equips employ­ees to man­age their work/life bal­ance bet­ter. It also “encour­ages a sup­port­ive, pur­pose­ful work­ing envi­ron­ment and reduces employ­ee dis­sat­is­fac­tion”, says Rita Tre­han, founder and CEO of HR con­sul­tan­cy Dare World­wide. “Unlim­it­ed hol­i­day pack­ages are cor­re­lat­ed with major reduc­tions in time off for sick­ness and staff turnover. Relax­ing con­trol and trust­ing your employ­ees may seem an imme­di­ate risk to tra­di­tion­al busi­ness­es, but it pays off in the long run.”

The offer of unlim­it­ed hol­i­day engen­ders greater trust between employ­er and employ­ee, but well-defined ground rules are still required to retain this lev­el of sen­ti­ment. Tre­han advis­es employ­ers to deter­mine what the “accept­able use” of a lim­it­less hol­i­day pol­i­cy looks like and how this works along­side the objec­tives of the busi­ness. 

“The sys­tem should help peo­ple live their lives and achieve their key per­for­mance indi­ca­tors. They should recog­nise that it will be con­sid­ered viable only if it con­tin­ues con­tribut­ing to their organisation’s per­for­mance,” she says. “Clear bound­aries tell peo­ple what’s accept­able. Lead­ers should set expec­ta­tions of what can rea­son­ably be achieved in a giv­en peri­od. Around this, employ­ees should be afford­ed the flex­i­bil­i­ty to work how, when and where it’s most con­ducive.”

A writ­ten pol­i­cy will min­imise the poten­tial for mis­use, says Gillian McA­teer, head of employ­ment law at Cita­tion, an HR con­sul­tan­cy that spe­cialis­es in advis­ing SMEs and third-sec­tor organ­i­sa­tions.

“Busi­ness­es that want to take the bold step of imple­ment­ing unlim­it­ed hol­i­days must be clear with their employ­ees from the out­set about any restric­tions,” she stress­es. “It will be much eas­i­er for them to tack­le abuse if there’s a writ­ten pol­i­cy that iden­ti­fies what is con­sid­ered abuse and sets out what actions the busi­ness would take in such an event.”

McA­teer notes that “iden­ti­fy­ing ‘rea­son­able’ behav­iour is at the heart of many employ­ment dis­putes. An employ­er should there­fore give exam­ples of what could be con­sid­ered unrea­son­able. An even bet­ter approach would be to say that employ­ees are enti­tled to take unlim­it­ed hol­i­days to the extent that it doesn’t adverse­ly affect their per­for­mance.”

Sea­soned employ­ees who’ve nev­er known any­thing oth­er than a fixed allowance may find shift­ing to a take-as-much-as-you-like sys­tem quite an adjust­ment.

“When peo­ple join the7stars to start their first ‘prop­er’ job, our hol­i­day pol­i­cy feels nat­ur­al, but it can be con­fus­ing for those who join from oth­er organ­i­sa­tions and aren’t used to it,” Biggam says. “They can even feel ner­vous about tak­ing time off. I explain every­thing ful­ly to new starters dur­ing the induc­tion process and remind them to nev­er feel guilty for tak­ing hol­i­day.”

The ben­e­fits of a prop­er break are not to be under­es­ti­mat­ed, notes Tre­han, who says that mak­ing this point clear to recruits should help them to embrace the sys­tem. 

“It shouldn’t become a bur­den to those who aren’t inclined to take hol­i­day,” she explains. “Staff must feel that they can take time off with­out look­ing lazy. This relies on open and clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion with their man­agers.”

Out­siders may con­sid­er unlim­it­ed leave to be a gim­mick, com­pen­sat­ing for a lack of oth­er bene­fits. But, when it’s incor­po­rat­ed into a pack­age that gen­uine­ly puts the individual’s well­be­ing first, it feels nat­ur­al, Biggam says. 

“Giv­ing peo­ple free­dom is great for any busi­ness,” she argues. “Not only does it cre­ate great cul­ture; it also helps employ­ees to ful­fil their poten­tial. I’m often asked whether peo­ple take more or less hol­i­day under our unlim­it­ed pol­i­cy than they nor­mal­ly would. I have no idea – we real­ly aren’t count­ing.”