Microsoft is giving its full-time employees in the U.S. unlimited vacation, Human Resources Director Kathleen Hogan said in an email.
“The place, time and way of our work have changed. Therefore, modernizing our leave policy to a more flexible model was a natural next step,” explains Hogan in an internal memo.
From January 16, everyone who wants to will be able to take an unlimited vacation, including new Microsoft employees. The company will continue to offer 10 corporate days off per year, as well as days off due to illness, jury duty or bereavement. Employees with unused vacations will receive a one-time payment in April.
The policy has been updated for full-time employees only and does not list hourly contract workers or those based outside the US (the latter will be subject to the benefits and rules provided in their countries).
Microsoft is not the first major technology company to introduce unlimited vacation. Previously, a similar policy was implemented at Salesforce, LinkedIn, Oracle and Netflix.
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FINANCIAL ANALYSIS
The new rules follow Microsoft’s previous telecommuting allowances for large numbers of employees (employees are allowed to work from home for less than 50% of their work week and managers are allowed to work remotely all the time) and a $1,500 “pandemic bonus,” a one-time payment to employees that was given “in recognition of the unique and challenging fiscal year that Microsoft has completed.”
Previously, Microsoft quietly laid off almost 1,000 employees: the cuts even affected the teams creating technologies for the state and the Xbox gaming division.
Source: The Verge
