Richard Branson has done it again, unveiling a new approach to employee annual leave.
In a bid to boost employee morale, King of the runway Richard Branson, will offer his UK and US employees unlimited annual leave.
Branson revealed on his blog that Virgin Group employees in the UK and US will have no limits on their time off, as long as they feel up to date on every project and their absence will not harm the business.
“Oh, hi, Richard? Yes, I think I’ll take you up on that offer of an extended lunch…”
To announce the generous staff offer the entrepreneur billionaire, in true Branson fashion, quoted himself, using extracts of his latest book, The Virgin Way:
“It is left to the employee alone to decide if and when he or she feels like taking a few hours, a day, a week or a month off, the assumption being that they are only going to do it when they feel a 100% comfortable that they and their team are up to date on every project and that their absence will not in any way damage the business – or, for that matter, their careers!”
“It is always interesting to note how often the adjectives ‘smart’ and ‘simple’ describe the cleverest of innovations – well, this is surely one of the simplest and smartest initiatives I have heard of in a long time and I’m delighted to say that we have introduced this same (non) policy at our parent company in both the UK and the US, where vacation policies can be particularly draconian.
“Assuming it goes as well as expected, we will encourage all our subsidiaries to follow suit, which will be incredibly exciting to watch.” However, it was not Branson that conjured up the no-holds-barred annual leave policy.
His decision to announce such a generous offer came after his daughter, Holly, alerted him to the fact that online streaming firm, Netflix had have an annual leave policy, also meaning staff can be away from the office whenever they want for as long as they want.