IS UNLIMITED HOLIDAY
REALLY UNLIMITED? The mention of unlimited holiday has the ability to captivate even the most sceptical of workers, but is it true?
1) “Unlimited means infinite possibility. There’s so much choice, that you never choose.” Most people would immediately think a company would fall apart because everyone went on a 6-month jolly. However, unlimited holiday policies generally fail because of the opposite. Put simply – most companies will find that given an unlimited holiday, employees will not take enough.
Some companies will advertise unlimited holiday when they really mean unpaid leave. This is not the same thing. Unlimited holiday in the truest sense means unlimited paid leave. An unlimited number of days off, no holiday requests and the ability to take it whenever you want – it sounds like a dream come true. But is there really such a thing as unlimited holiday – and does it work in practice? The concept has roots in the US, largely because there is no legal entitlement to holiday, therefore holiday pay is not accrued and does not need to be paid on termination. It has recently been offered by a growing number of organisations, and is particularly prevalent in tech and start up organisations.
The real impact of unlimited holiday policies In the UK, employers need to consider practical and legal issues such as limits on the number of days that can be taken at one time, and how and if holiday will accrue throughout the year. In the UK, statutory leave will always accrue regardless of annual leave policies and will still need to be paid out when an employee leaves.
Putting a numerical value on holiday time is actually a psychological quirk of ownership. If you are given 25 days of holiday that are yours to take, you are subconsciously motivated to take them. When something is perceived as belonging to you, you immediately value it far more highly. Whereas, the lack of number – the very concept of unlimited – meant that employees potentially don’t value holiday time in the same way. In many companies where unlimited holiday policies have been trialled – and then scrapped – it was due to staff not taking their statutory entitlement (28 days). As we all know, not taking enough annual leave is a one-way ticket to burnout. 2) It opens the door to unfairness While unlimited holiday allows individuals freedom, what many SMEs fail to consider is that holidays aren’t singularly about the individuals taking time off. It affects everyone else in their team, and everyone across the company as a whole. While someone might only take 20 days a year – someone else might feel they need 30. But when one person is away, their work needs to be covered, and it’s the person in the office who picks up the slack. The burden of deciding what unlimited means is shifted to employees. How much is too much? Is it unfair for one employee to take more holiday than another? Do we count how many days each employee takes?
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advocate summer 2022 | 12
