Vacation policy for Companies

Vacation policy was not a worry for Bluewolf, a New York IT consulting firm opened in 2000. Michael Kirven and Eric Berridge, the owners of Bluewolf have thought about it when they started the company. They let staff take paid time off for holidays, travel and rest whenever they wanted to without asking permission. They just have to let their managers know as a courtesy.

About 18months later, with 10 employees, they made the vacation policy as its first official policy.

"If you want to take a vacation, take it," Kirven says. As long as workers met their goals, they could take as much time as they wanted, when they wanted. In other words, there is no formal vacation policy.

Kirven doubted the startup could sustain the approach as the company expanded. "I didn't think it would scale when we were at 20, then 50, then 100, then 150 [employees]," he says. Now, with a staff of 200, satellite offices in San Francisco and North Carolina, and $18 million in revenue in 2007, he doesn't consider the lax vacation rules a risk that employees will forget their duties.

Kirven sees it as a competitive advantage. They made it clear that a no vacation policy doesn’t mean unlimited vacation.. He estimates most people take three to four weeks each year, he says. But there's no pressure to put in a certain number of days or hours as long as the work is getting done.

Hold over from the Industrial Era

Bluewolf is just a part of a growing group of companies that let employees manage their time. But giving workers complete control over their schedules is rare enough that Kirven says human resources people tell him he's crazy.

"The reason companies have a vacation policy or time-off policy is because of the way work is structured: 8 to 5, Monday through Friday," says Jody Thompson, one of the Best Buy HR managers who upended the company's attitude toward time. "Work is something you do, not someplace you go," Thompson says.

The benefits for staff are clear. Workers at Bluewolf's Manhattan headquarters offers bottom-up team trips to the gym. And when the vacation time isn't enough, Bluewolf accommodates workers who want to take unpaid leaves, including one who took a year off when each of her three children was born.

Vacation policy helps attract and retain motivated workers, experts say.