Recently I stumbled across an article stating that Virgin, Richard Branson's company, are offering its employees unlimited holiday. An employee of Virgin will be able to request as many days off as they so wish within the calendar year.
Sorry, what?
That was my first reaction. How on earth can a company function when all its employees are allowed to take days off here, there and everywhere, whenever they feel like it? When I first heard about this I felt incredibly jealous of all Virgin employees. At the law firm where I work we get 25 days, and an extra day which we can use for a 'day in the community'. I would say that's pretty generous compared to the 15 days given in law firms in America. However clearly Virgin didn't think that was enough. But what was their rationale?
From research it seems there are three arguments for this action: trust, paternalism and efficiency. Firstly, allowing unlimited holiday displays a trust between employee and employer, that employees will not 'take the piss' by taking every day off as holiday but allowing flexibility to its employees at the same time. It shows a paternalistic attitude of the employer, showing that they care about their employees' well being and understand that sometimes circumstances demand an employee needing or wanting to take more holiday than the standard 25 days. Lastly, the idea is that taking extra holiday will mean employees will actually work more productively and efficiently on their days at work in the knowledge that they have more days off.
I am a cynic, and I don't believe any commercial private company functions on compassionate, trusting behaviour. It functions on hard-working, efficient and reliable employees. At the end of the day it's a business and it runs to achieving a profit. Therefore it would seem to me that only the last argument is convincing. I know that my productivity levels certainly decrease on occasion on a Friday, when I have had a long week and am looking forward to the weekend. However, surely this only justifies working a 4 day week, not having unlimited holiday?
Unfortunately, I think the concept is a bit smoke and mirrors. Whilst Virgin can claim that they are offering their employees unlimited holidays, in reality it's surely just not plausible. Not everyone in the office can be on holiday at the same time. And when there is a heavy workload and time-pressured tasks, how is it possible to just take some time off just because you can? Everyone knows work just doesn't work like that. It reminds me of a boss saying 'go home' at midnight, but both of you know going home at midnight is not an option and if you were to he would NOT be impressed. It's an attractive 'feature' of a works package, which in reality is never used. In fact on the contrary, I would suggest it could end up with people actually taking less than the normal 25 days because there would be no number to work with. No minimum and no maximum.
Nice try Branson, but I'm yet to be convinced.
No comments:
Post a Comment