Virgin Jumps On Board Netflix Band Wagon

Computers quickly became an awesome and beneficial invention and when they entered the workforce, it saved companies loads of time and manpower.  Since this boom in the industry, more and more people are working from home or even out and about, using computers, laptops, phones and tablets to get their work done.  It is now hard to keep track of just how much hours are being spent on work because of this increase in mobility.

Richard Branson will be giving his staff as much leave as they need.

Netflix has taken this idea into consideration.  Rather than forcing staff to fill in annual leave forms, employers of Netflix have decided to give employees the gift of managing their own time-off.  Holiday time isn’t tracked thus giving workers unlimited time-off. As a result, staff are happier and more productive.  It seems to have worked, as Netflix is hardly suffering because of their new strategy.

It seems to have worked so well that Richard Branson, CEO of Virgin, has decided to roll out the same ‘policy’ or ‘no policy’ on holiday time.  Employees in the US and UK headquarters will adopt the policy first.  If it’s successful, all Virgin subsidiaries will soon move into this new idea.

In theory, it sounds like a brilliant idea but there must be a lot of trust between employers and staff. Self-management is a key to success.  The one stipulation for the policy to work is that those taking holidays must leave without the operation of the company being disrupted.  Other staff must be able to continue doing their work while those on holiday are away.

Although this policy will work well in a company like Virgin, other sectors will not benefit from such an idea.  But the technology industry is not one of those sectors!  Large companies, like Google and Facebook, are always fighting over talent.  This will be a great negotiating point.  It will help recruit workers and also help to keep workers.

As always, if you would like to leave a sensible comment, then please do so in the comments section below.

[Image via:wikimedia]

SOURCE: http://www.geek.com/news/virgin-copies-netflix-lets-staff-take-as-much-leave-as-they-want-1605224/