Microsoft Says It Will Start Offering U.S. Employees “Unlimited” Time Off

Starting next week, Microsoft’s current vacation policy will change to an unlimited one, meaning all salaried employees in the United States can take time off as needed and also will no longer need to wait and accrue holiday anymore.

The new policy, which goes into effect on Jan. 16, is described by the world’s biggest software company as “Discretionary Time Off.”

“How, when, and where we do our jobs has dramatically changed,” Kathleen Hogan, the company’s chief people officer, said in an internal memo viewed by The Verge. “And as we’ve transformed, modernizing our vacation policy to a more flexible model was a natural next step.”

Furthermore, this so-called “new” “unlimited time off” policy, Microsoft also will offer 10 corporate holidays, leaves of absence, time off for sick or mental health, jury duty, or bereavement, according to the network, citing Hogan’s memo.

In case an employee still has an unused vacation balance, this day—or days—will be compensated in a one-time payout in April.

Microsoft stated that the new policy won’t be applied to hourly employees, citing state and federal wage and hour laws.

Employees working in other parts of the world also won’t be able to enjoy this flexibility due to different laws and regulations in countries outside the United States, making it difficult to enforce the policy.

The company was home to approximately 122,000 full-time employees in the United States in fiscal 2022 and 221,000 in full-time jobs around the world.

Microsoft isn’t the only tech company that offers unlimited time off to employees. The Verge reported that Microsoft-owned LinkedIn and Oracle, as well as Netflix, offered similar policies in the past.

Netflix, which was the first company in America to offer an unlimited vacation policy, started offering this vacation program to its employees back in 2010. Netflix refers to the policy as, “No Vacation Policy,” This basically puts the employee in control of when they work and when they take a rest.

Many tech companies are competing to retain and attract talent through offering additional benefits. Netflix, Microsoft and other tech companies have family-friendly policies.

Netflix has been encouraging employee freedom for years by offering unlimited vacation policies and allowing employees to bring their pets to work. New parents are also eligible for one year of paid maternity and paternity leaves.

Although this policy is more common in recent times, it remains rare. According to a 2021 surveyOnly 4% of U.S. businesses offer it. Survey results also showed that 51% of companies use traditional paid leave plans and 41% offer paid time off. “PTO.”

A Report Published by the BBC on May 20, 2022, the report found that while the policy allowed overworked employees to take time off to improve their mental health and work/life balance, it also resulted in some workers taking less vacation due to peer pressure. “unacceptable” The number of holidays.

The report also shows that there were a few companies who adopted the policy at first, but then ended it later. Employees often took less time off due to this policy being fixed, the report states.

One such company is Unknown, a London-based recruitment agency, which went viral on LinkedIn after the firm’s CEO announced that it is scrapping its unlimited leave policy after workers felt “guilty” They never took any time off. Instead, the company adopted a policy that allowed employees to take 32 days off without pay. This was universally applied across all ranks.

From NTD News

Lorenz Duchamps is a news writer for NTD, The Epoch Times’ sister media, focusing primarily on the United States, world, and entertainment news.

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