Henry Zhang’s blog post “Unlimited Vacation Days for Virgin Personal Staff”, surrounds a very interesting and often debated concept, the idea of a firm giving it’s employees the freedom to make their own decisions regarding their holidays and work hours. This topic is often debated as it pits an employee’s personal gain against the employee’s professional gain in the workforce. It questions whether an employee will or will not take advantage of such freedom at unsuitable times resulting as a cost to the business.
Henry, highlights in his post that Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Group’s boss has recently enforced this policy, where his staff consisting of 170 people could “take off whenever they want for as long as they want” as long as they feel that their absence will not damage their career and business in any way.
Now Henry makes two very good points in reference to Sir Branson’s decision, which I am in agreement with.
1) This decision boosts employee moral, and increases employee retention.
2) Sir Branson places himself in a great position to publicize his company in a positive light for no cost.
However in addition to this, I feel it’s also necessary to draw attention to the fact that ultimately this decision isn’t a publicity stunt at no cost. There is a reason why not all businesses implement such means that are likely to increase employee motivation. There are bound to be people who will take advantage of this freedom and this rule may make it harder of managers to deal with such employees.
Hence, I feel that the decision made has its pro’s and con’s, but for the most part I agree with Sir Branson’s decision of taking this implementation slowly by only implementing it in certain branches to start of with. This is a good way to ensure its effectiveness before taking the big decision of implementing this decision in all it’s branches and subsidiaries.
Sir Richard Branson
Works Cited
“Branson Offers Staff Unlimited Leave.” BBC News. BBC Business News, 24 Sept. 2014. Web. 14 Oct. 2014. <http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29356627>.
Zhang, Henry. “Henry Zhang’s Blog.” Henry Zhangs Blog. UBC, 26 Sept. 2014. Web. 14 Oct. 2014. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/henryzhang/>.
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