Microsoft grants employees “unlimited time off”

Microsoft is giving its US employees unlimited vacation time. In future, employees will also receive ten additional public holidays and various leave of absence. How vacation adapts to New Work.

Microsoft allows its employees in the US to take unlimited vacations. As first The Verge reported, this emerges from an internal memo to the employees.

In it, Chief People Officer Kathleen Hogan announced that the new so-called “Discretionary Time Off” would apply to all permanent employees in the United States.

Vacation at Microsoft adapts to new everyday work

Microsoft’s new vacation policy will go into effect on January 16, 2023. For employees, this means that they no longer have to wait to collect vacation days. They also get ten additional holidays, leave of absence and time off for sickness and mental illness.

They can also take time off to serve on a jury or in the event of a bereavement. Employees who have unused vacation days left receive a one-time payment.

How, when and where Microsoft employees work has changed dramatically, Hogan explains in the memo. As the company has changed, modernizing the vacation policy to a more flexible model is a natural next step.

Unlimited vacation not for everyone

However, not all employees of the tech group will benefit from the new regulation. Hourly employees, for example, cannot take unlimited time off.

Team members who work outside the US will also not benefit from the new vacation policy. This is mainly due to the different wage and hour laws of the states and countries.

Unlimited vacation at Microsoft: are appearances deceptive?

Microsoft isn’t the first tech company to offer unlimited vacation days. Salesforce, LinkedIn, Oracle and Netflix have also introduced similar regulations in the past.

While the company’s new vacation policy is a big concession by US standards, the theory might sound better than the practice actually is in the end.

Because in tech companies, people have always worked a lot and for a long time. Despite unlimited vacation days, deadlines have to be met and results have to be achieved.

how NTV reported, employees ended up taking even less vacation time than before. Some companies in the industry have therefore already withdrawn the regulations on self-determined vacation days.

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