Microsoft is creating more reasons why anybody would want to work with it. The software giant is upgrading its four weeks policy to unlimited time off for its US employees. Microsoft’s chief people officer Kathleen Hogan announced this via memo first spotted by The Verge. Reportedly, this leave format can be availed by all salaried employees at Microsoft US. The changes are said to go live from January 16.
Microsoft is calling this unlimited time off “Discretionary Time off”. It is basically a paid time off granted to an employee for his or her noteworthy achievement or contribution to the organisation. Apart from the new unlimited time off, Microsoft also offers 10 corporate holidays, sick time off, mental health time off, leaves of absence, as well as time away for jury duty or bereavement.
Microsoft is the not the only tech giant to offer unlimited leaves. There are several more companies that follow this.
Netflix: The popular video streaming company has a “Time away” vacation policy. It lets employees observe what’s important for them including their mind and body and accordingly take a break.
“Our vacation policy is “take vacation” and we actually do. Frankly, we intermix work and personal time quite a bit. Time away works differently at Netflix. We don’t have a prescribed 9-to-5 workday, so we don’t have prescribed time off policies for salaried employees, either. We don’t set a holiday and vacation schedule, so you can observe what’s important to you—including when your mind and body need a break. We believe in working smarter, not harder,” says the company.
LinkedIn: LinkedIn announced the unlimited vacation time way back in 2015. The goal is to empower managers and employees. With discretionary time off, there is no set minimum or maximum amount of vacation time employees can take in a year.
“We believe DTO, along with our new July Fourth holiday break, will give our employees the ability to better meet their personal needs, which will then allow them to bring their best self to work,” company’s Chief People Officer Pat Wadors wrote in a blog post while announcing the policy.
Oracle: Oracle has Paid Time Off (PTO) policy that permits employees to take paid time off each year as they work to use for vacation or sick leave.
“Accrual plans permit eligible employees to accrue PTO (paid time off) each year as they work, to use for vacation or sick leave. Oracle HRMS has no restrictions on the number of plans you can set up, each with its own units of accrued time (hours or days) and its own rules,” says the company.
Zoom: The popular video conferencing app company gives unlimited time off to its employees each year. This is in addition to 20 days of personal vacation leave and up to three months of sick leave.
Roku: The company has unlimited time off too. It is available for its salaried employees. “For salaried employees, we don’t track vacation. Instead, you can take what you think is appropriate, as long as you get your job done and don’t impact the team’s work,” says the company.
Adobe: The software company says there’s no specified amount of vacation days or paid time off. The company encourages employees to work directly with their managers to arrange the time off they need when they need.
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