Unlimited time off: An emerging benefit
An unlimited vacation policy sounds like an ideal job perk for those who value work-life balance.
Unfortunately, while unlimited vacation is a trendy policy, it’s still pretty rare. A relatively small number of companies currently offer unlimited paid time off. According to XpertHR’s 2021 paid leave survey, only 4% of the 639 companies surveyed offer this benefit.
Still, those companies are out there. Generally, if you’re going to work for a company offering an unlimited vacation benefit, it’ll likely be a larger company — and perhaps one in the tech industry. According to a U.S. News survey of 200 large companies in the finance, technology and digital media industries, 20% offer unlimited PTO. Of those, 15% are technology companies.
It’s also worth noting that some critics say that unlimited vacation time is more of a perk for the company. It can mean that when you leave a job, you haven’t accrued paid vacation time that a company would otherwise be required to pay out to you.
In any case, if you’re looking for a job and evaluating employee benefits like 401(k) matching contributions, dependent care flexible spending accounts and flexible time off, you may see unlimited vacation on the menu. This is hardly a comprehensive list, but here are 13 companies offering this perk.
Netflix
What the company does: Netflix is an international subscription streaming service.
Unlimited vacation policy: Employees are trusted to take as much time off as they need or want without being irresponsible about it. The company culture means that many people are working in the evenings and on weekends, so Netflix trusts that its employees won’t abuse the perk of having unlimited vacation.
As Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings explained it in his 2020 book co-written by Erin Meyer, “No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention,” an employee once said to him: “We are all working online some weekends, responding to emails at odd hours, taking off an afternoon for personal time. We don’t track hours worked per day or week. Why are we tracking days of vacation per year?”
Hastings agreed, and that led to the unlimited vacation policy.
Oracle
What the company does: This well-known multinational computer software company is based in Austin, Texas.
Unlimited vacation policy: Oracle offers its unlimited vacation time to salaried employees (those who can’t get overtime), and they call it “flexible vacation.”
As with most, if not all, companies in this list, employees must get preapproval from their manager, so they aren’t going on a vacation when the company really needs them.
If you’re an Oracle employee who isn’t eligible for flexible vacation, you’ll receive 13 vacation days a year for the first three years — and after that, 18 days.
What the company does: LinkedIn produces a widely used global professional social media network.
Unlimited vacation policy: The company is well known for trying to give employees a work-life balance. In addition to unlimited vacation time, employees receive 17 paid holidays a year, and in April 2021, the entire company received a paid week off. Other than a few core people who continued working but were given time off later, most of the company’s 15,900 employees were given a week off to recharge.
Another work-life balance perk: LinkedIn also has a long company tradition of giving everyone one day a month, called an InDay, short for Investment Day, during which employees can focus on projects they personally want to pursue that have nothing to do with their daily work routines.
Zoom
What the company does: The company offers a videoconferencing app. While it was a popular way to communicate before the pandemic, Zoom arguably became a household name in 2020, as people struggled to talk to each other — without being in the same room. Zoom is headquartered in San Jose, California.
Unlimited vacation policy: Zoom calls its unlimited vacation policy, “My Time-Off.” It also observes 11 paid holidays every year, and employees receive paid sick days and paid days in which they can do volunteer work.
Evernote
What the company does: It designs Evernote, an app designed for note taking, organizing task management and archiving. It’s based in Redwood, California.
Unlimited vacation policy: The company has the full benefits you would expect, including medical, dental, vision, life and disability insurance, and a 401(k). It also has unlimited vacation time, and along with it, Evernote encourages employees to use it by giving them a $1,000 annual vacation stipend (provided the employee takes a break of five days or longer).
Salesforce
What the company does: The company makes cloud-based software that helps businesses find more prospects, close deals and offer better customer service. In other words, Salesforce helps businesses that generate most of their income through sales.
Unlimited vacation policy: Salesforce has a flexible paid time off plan that is basically a way to get unlimited vacation time. In general, the company is pretty generous about letting its employees take needed downtime. For instance, it offers up to six weeks of paid time off to care for a family member’s health condition and up to two weeks of paid time off for jury duty.
Asana
What the company does: It produces a web and mobile task management app that aims to foster teamwork and productivity without email. Asana’s headquarters are in San Francisco.
Unlimited vacation policy: There’s not much to it: It’s unlimited vacation days. Asana also offers benefits such as a health insurance, a 401(k) and life insurance, as well as perks like gym reimbursements and 16 weeks of paid parental leave for all parents and caregivers.
Vimeo
What the company does: The company offers a video hosting, sharing and services platform. Basically, if you want to have people watching your videos, you probably will use Vimeo to create your videos — or one of its competitors like YouTube.
Unlimited vacation policy: Like most of the companies on the list, it’s the standard unlimited vacation days. But it is worth noting that along with national paid holidays, usually Vimeo closes its offices the preceding work day before — at 1 p.m.
Roku
What the company does: It manufactures a brand of hardware digital media players and is based out of San Francisco.
Unlimited vacation policy: Like many of these companies, for salaried employees it simply offers unlimited vacation time. As Roku has stated on its website, “We don’t track vacation or have official holidays. Instead, you can take as much vacation as you think is appropriate, as long as you get your job done and don’t impact the team’s work.”
Like the other companies on this list, Roku offers other benefits, including medical, wellness and financial benefits. At its headquarters, it also provides free snacks.
Hubspot
What the company does: It makes internet marketing software to help companies attract new customers. It’s based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Unlimited vacation policy: The company offers unlimited vacation and pretty much forces everybody to take at least a week off. Every July, Hubspot takes a companywide week off.
Also worth noting: After five years with the company, employees get a four-week paid sabbatical to take a vacation or learn a new skill or just recharge and relax.
Chegg
What the company does: The company, based in Santa Clara, California, is an education technology company that provides digital and physical textbook rentals, online tutoring and other student services.
Unlimited vacation policy: Chegg has an unlimited vacation policy — and it seems to value work-life balance. In 2020, when the pandemic was at its worst and people were stuck at home, employees didn’t go anywhere, and so the company gave its employees some mandatory paid time off, just to make sure people had some down time.
Adobe
What the company does: The company makes a lot of software products, often involving digital documents. Adobe invented the PDF.
Unlimited vacation policy: If you’re a salaried employee, as the Adobe website says, “There’s no specified amount of vacation days or paid time off … so we encourage you to work directly with your manager to arrange the time off you need when you need. At Adobe, we believe that taking time off is essential to the health and productivity of every employee.”
What the company does: As you probably are well aware, Twitter is a microblogging and social media communications platform headquartered in San Francisco.
Unlimited vacation policy: Along with the unlimited vacation time, there are many benefits that you would expect from a company of Twitter’s size. For instance, the company offers its employees 20 weeks of maternity and paternity leave as well as free snacks and free breakfast, lunch and dinner five days a week.
13 companies that offer unlimited vacation days:
— Netflix.
— Oracle.
— LinkedIn.
— Zoom.
— Evernote.
— Salesforce.
— Asana.
— Vimeo.
— Roku.
— Hubspot.
— Chegg.
— Adobe.
— Twitter.
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13 Companies That Offer Unlimited Vacation Days originally appeared on usnews.com
Update 06/22/22: This story was published at an earlier date and has been updated with new information.
