Annual leave gets eaten up SO quickly: a long weekend here, a casual jaunt there and BOOM, you’re out. But what if, for some glorious reason, your employer decided to give you unlimited annual leave? UNLIMITED.
That’s exactly the policy that Melbourne innovation consultancy Inventium brought in three years ago. Now pay attention to this, because this is how you may possibly be able to convince your own employer to do the same: it bloody worked a treat.
They found that staff take an average of five and a half weeks paid annual leave a year (what a goddamn dream), and sick leave has dropped to an average of only two and a half days each for the whole year. For context, the usual average for a single worker is eight or nine sick days a year.
Not only that, but engagement scores are up the wahzoo since the policy change, placing the company in the 90th percentile for their industry. Their staff are also sticking around for almost double the amount of time than they were before.
Dr Amantha Imber, the company founder, reckons it’s the flexibility that is valued by staff above all else. Which is exactly what a policy like this promotes – flexibility to holiday where you want, for as long as you want. But they also allow staff to pick their workplace and working hours, as long as the work gets done.
Is this the future workplace? Dear god I hope so.
