Go on, take that vacation

COMPRESSED DAYS AND REDUCED

hours address the need for flexibility on an ongoing basis, but sometimes you just need a week—or three—off. Unlimited paid time off gets a bad rap, since workers offered this policy take fewer days off than employees with a fixed allocation. “Sometimes, it’s because of guilt,” says Field-Ridley. “Or because their workload is too much.” Plus, with no balance to use or lose, vacations just aren’t prioritized. “There need to be parameters around these policies,” she says, “like minimum weeks employees must take or mandatory time off where the whole organization shuts down.”

Marketing agency Peachy has a minimum—there’s no maximum—paid vacation policy of 15 days; marketing software company Hubspot has a “global week of rest” on top of unlimited days and a “vacation quota relief” policy to ensure salespeople take a

break, too. Organization app Evernote encourages employees to take advantage of its unlimited days policy with a $1,000 vacation stipend, provided the break is at least five days long. Streaming service Roku’s unlimited time off policy states that “you can take what you think is appropriate, as long as you get your job done and don’t impact the team’s work,” which reflects the trust and autonomy workers are looking for. “People want to get their projects done,” says Field-Ridley. “They just don’t want to feel like they’re owned by a company anymore.”