Hotscot

"Virgin staff will be allowed to take as much holiday as they want, when they want, Sir Richard Branson announces." As long as they manage their responsibilities.

Nice to see this trend. Many salaried professionals work far more than the minimum expected.

(For anyone interested job sites like Indeed.com can handle search queries that specify "remote" for location.)

Steerpike

My g/f works for a small company that told her they have no fixed vacation policy. She's so far been able to take whatever time off she's wanted. She just got back from 2.5 weeks in Europe, and they don't seem to mind. Very unusual to me.

rpjs

The company I work for has an open PTO policy covering vacation, sick, compassionate leave etc. You just arrange it with your line manager. Any amount over three weeks at a time or 30 working days in a year has to be signed off by the next layer of management. HR have said that in practice they expect employees to take about four weeks vacation in a year, but the advantage is if you wanted to take four weeks in January, say, you can without having to wait for days to accrue.

Seems to work well, and the company also equips us to work from home if you need to be in for a tradesman or feel a bit under the weather but capable of working.

This sort of arrangement seems to be getting more common in NYC tech companies, because there is more demand for staff than supply. When I was job hunting back in March all three companies I had offers from offered open/unlimited PTO as a benefit.

robin1234

I'm now retired but I used to work in a college library. Two of my librarian colleagues have a semi formal agreement to work from home for days at a time or weeks at a time because of their child care responsibilities, but all of us did to some extent. Problem is, this flexibility did not at all extend to technicians and clerical folk - because they are unionized.

AmerLisa

This sounds similar with what my husband's job allows. He has an allotted amount of days per year, but he can go over that time as well. And they also have a very flexible work from home policy. When he was sick a few months back, if he felt like it, he just powered up his computer and was able to work rather than taking a PTO day and doing nothing.

scrubbedexpat091

My GF needs a week of in November, and her employer made her find a co-worker to cover her shifts, they refused to give her the time off, luckily she has nice co-worker who is willing to work an extra couple of days that week.

Law says companies don't have to provide time off the first 12 months, so they are sticking to it, but they don't actually care if she takes the time off provided she finds the coverage for it.

fulwood

I'm not in technology but if I want time off I need to find someone to cover my schedule. I provide speech therapy services in-home. I went to UK this summer for 6 weeks as not been back since 2008. If I had not found someone to cover my 25 clients I would have had no job to come back to. BUT I would have quit as I needed this trip to UK for many personal reasons.. I'm an independent contractor supposedly work for myself - but the company I work for (get paid by DDD) could fire me if some complaint was filed.. No complaints though - love the job. As I do home health don't get involved in party politics, favoritism at clinic

Hotscot

I may be mistaken but I don't think there's any law that says you have to offer any vacation.

scrubbedexpat091

Sorry, I was referencing where we are in British Columbia, and the provincial labor code requires time off.

Employers here are required to provide the following at minimum:

1st year of employment- 0 days off.

2nd year to 4th year - 10 days off.

5th year and beyond- 15 days.

It doesn't transfer to a new employer, so if you have 10 years and 15 days at your employer and move to a new employer, you start over with nothing.

Hotscot

Oh thanks for the clarification.

Gozit

Sounds like a really good arrangement... Glad to know that trend is happening; that's the industry i'm looking to get in.

kimilseung

Depends on the organization, I can see this working against employees in some organizations. Work expanding to fill the time, and so no time for any or very few days off.