UKC

'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 hundred per cent 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," he added.'

I hope he's ready for the massive influx of climbers offering to work for him...

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Sure it's just another publicity stunt. What happens if we all want the same week off?

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:


That could be interpreted as taking any holiday could adversely affect your career.

In reply to Ridge:

Fortunately I've not fallen for dominate discourse that everyone has a career. Go to work, do your job make the effort to get on with colleagues, go home.

In reply to Ridge:

Yeah, I'm not sure I like it.

I'd rather have a specific contracted entitlement that is part of my remuneration for my job.

FWIW I never understood why anyone doesn't take their full entitlement. It's like not taking your entire salary.

Neil

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

How many people don't take their annual leave allowance? Presumably still can be k.o.'d by management. Publicity stunt. How about they paid some, any corporate tax in the U.K?

D

In reply to Neil Williams:


Ditto. I once managed negotiate our company to offer staff and their families meals out (paid for by the company) as a motivator to come in at the weekend and work all hours to get the project out on time. No one took up the offer. It just feels cheeky somehow. Weird really. Many of us work our asses off putting in extra effort, but when the offer is reciprocated, we feel somehow obliged not to take it. Odd.

In reply to Ridge:

And quite frankly, if I interpretted that strictly, I'd never be able to take any holiday.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

One of the software companies that we partner with has this policy. Basically there is no set entitlement and you take what you feel is appropriate. And they're in the US which has infamously poor holiday entitlement.

They're a startup though, and pretty much everyone is invested in the success of the company.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

This type of holiday allowance is becoming more and more popular. Especially with the tech companies.

A friend in San Francisco told me their company implemented it and the result was fewer holidays were taken. As someone mentioned above, the employees thought the company would use holidays taken as a bench mark for who fire should financial problems arise.

Sadly it would never work in our factory, the system would be harshly abused and nothing would ever get built.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Did some work for a dutch company who had a period of intense workscope so were asking key staff to muck in with overtime, weekends, extended trips abroad, so as well as the extra payments they also offered to help out by paying for "weekend" jobs ie one guy goy his house painted, the other had his car picked up and taken in for a service, the guys paid for the paint/parts but the company picked up all the labour.

In reply to jethro kiernan:


What's that?

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

I work for an organisation that takes a vaguely similar line on employee attendance. Its utter chaos. Without strict performance management people take the pi$$, and once the diligent see that the pish-takers are getting away with it they either start doing the same or get utterly despondent. As Ridge implies, the only way to control the situation in this case would be to be on everyone's backs and constant monitoring, with the end result that the the time in work becomes less enjoyable and the more holidays you take relative to others, the slacker you will look - big potential for animosity.

In reply to aln:

more work than they can handle with a forty hour week and people taking holidays

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

I'm dubious about it. No fixed entitlement can also be read as no entitlement if the criteria is that they can only take the time during lulls etc. Seems that you're totally at the mercy of your manager as to whether you get time off, and it's another "metric" for them to see who takes the most days.

Seeing how many people where I work do silly hours and don't use their holiday entitlement, I suspect it's more a clever way of reducing the holidays people take, esp with the sly mention of hurting their career at the end.

Stu

In reply to David Martin:


As someone who has managed large teams for 30 years, I completely agree. Of course I want to be able to give holidays, and to take extra holidays, but it needs to be managed tightly.
I took 4 weeks extra this summer for my Alps trip, but I did it unpaid, and ensured I had covered all the bases. I would allow my team to do the same, but with the same caveats.
The reality however would be possibly increased on-cost, or even worse, illustrating that you're not actually needed, so one has to tread most carefully.
And I doubt I am going to be able to keep getting unpaid leave, so may be heading for pastures new presently

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Managerial genius to shackle workers to their desks.