Experiment of Unlimited Vacation Days Is Successful

By: Together Abroad 09-01-2017

Categories:* Daily employment news,
A year ago the company Bynder offered unlimited vacation days for all employees. After 365 days, the director Chris Hall reflects: “It's going very well”. Bynder provides a cloud service for marketers, a program that is a combination of an online Photoshop program and an image bank. Last summer, the start-up got another 20 million Euros.

The experiment of Hall began last January. One of his goals was to spread the holidays so that the infamous ‘reservoir’ of days off would solve itself,one of the problems that more organizations have to deal with.This has been successful, he says. “In the last year, people often took a few days in between when they could, and went a long weekend away. We have now completely eliminated the accumulated days that remained on the balance sheet”.

11% More Used Free Days

The number of used free days increased by 11%. In America, where there are traditionally less free days, employees took more days: 40% to be exact.Hall explains the relatively small increase in the Netherlands with a comparison: “It is like my apartment. There I have a balcony. The fact that I can use it if I want is worth a lot to me, even though I am not always there”.

Of course there is a risk that (now) one of the 260 employees engages the situation with both hands to take a nice long paid sabbatical. In that regard, Hall breathes easy: none of the staff “walk the edges”.Despite the enormous freedom, the rules remain the same: who wants to vacation, must take into account other colleagues.

The Company Culture

Employees of some companies that have introduced unlimited vacation days, such as Netflix, complained that they could indeed take as much vacation days as they want, but that the company does not allow it.

“The system stands or falls by a strong corporate. You give a certain level of trust to your employees but the company’s culture has to be open and critical. With us that is the case and it regulates itself a bit”,says Hall.

“You Should Try It”

Hall often received questions from entrepreneurs last year as to whether unlimited vacation days would be something for their business. It works by modern enterprises with a positive culture, he says.

"You should try it. If people have to clock in and drag themselves to work, then abuse is more common. We assume that everyone is positive and responsible and with pleasure goes to work. We try that in any case”.

Source: http://www.rtlnieuws.nl