Unlimited Holiday Time – As Good as it Sounds?

 

Advantages

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Some of the plus sides are as follows. Employees can enjoy greater responsibility, becoming more autonomous by managing their holidays and time off without having to get clearance from managers or team leaders. This, in turn, can lead to a better work/life balance, which is something most staff value very highly. Having this level of autonomy over holidays can make staff feel less stressed, as they can easily get the rest they need, when they need it. These kinds of benefits are incredibly powerful from a motivational and general well being perspective.

Employers, on the other hand, have tended to find that employees are more productive as a result of a more flexible holiday system. It can also help to keep staff loyal as a result – a factor that shouldn’t be overlooked when it comes to retaining valuable or highly skilled members of a workforce. Additionally, a more relaxed and happy workforce will create and foster a more positive and happy working environment.

 

Disadvantages

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Although it might be hard to imagine (especially as an employee), there are, in fact, some potential disadvantages too.

Employees might find that:

• They may feel guilty about the amount of holiday time they are taking. 
• Choosing how and when to take time off could become more stressful.
• They end up actually taking less time off, because of the above issues!
• Some people will probably take more time off than others, which could lead to tension or strained working relationships. 
• Holidays aren’t truly unlimited. There will no doubt be times when staff might be overruled by management on their holiday time as things are too busy.
• Not every company will be able to offer this perk.

Employers may find that: 

• There’s potential for some employees to abuse the system and take excessive holidays. Having to monitor this then contradicts the idea of more employee autonomy. 
• Employees end up taking fewer holidays under an unlimited system. This might seem like an advantage to an employer, but in actuality, this means that an unlimited holiday allocation could end up making work-related stress or burn out worse, as employees take less days off in the end.  

 

Summary

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Whether an unlimited holiday policy will work really comes down to a number of factors, not least what sector a company works in. Busy call centres or dispatch teams will still be bound by the ebbs and flows of customers, for example, and this is true for a large cross-section of businesses.

Interestingly, while there are plenty of potential advantages, an unlimited holiday scheme could end up stressing out employees even more, which is completely counter-intuitive. There are indeed some companies that have found a way to make this kind of approach to time off work for them and their staff, but it’s not necessarily the problem-solving panacea it initially appears to be.