No more worrying about whether you have enough leave left to take: the number is now unlimited. Fiction ? No, reality for Goldman Sachs bank employees. In France, a few companies have also made this choice.
Article written by
Posted on 24/05/2022 07:10
Update and 24/05/2022 09:25
Reading time : 1 min.
For the past few days, the executives of the American investment bank Goldman Sachs have seen life differently: they can take as many days off as they wish. Their employer now grants them the right to unlimited leave. All employees are not housed in the same boat: the measure only concerns senior executives. The others still have a compulsory three weeks vacation per year, which is not so bad in the United States.
This unlimited leave offer is not isolated since Netflix has been doing it for years, but also big companies like Linkedin or Virgin. And a myriad of tech start-ups. Goldman Sachs didn’t just follow suit. The bank heard the complaints of its employees, who demanded a cap of 80 hours worked per week and claimed the right not to work on Fridays after 9 p.m. A year after the publication of these grievances, the bank took the measure, in fear of seeing its best employees leave. After “the big resignation” in the United States, with the revolt at Apple against the return to the office, it is clearly to face this same fear that Goldman Sachs drew its unlimited leave.
In France, a comparable movement does not exist, but there are still companies that practice unlimited holidays. This is for example the case with Indeed, the job search engine. The French branch benefits from this policy implemented by the group throughout the world for its 10,000 employees. On average, worldwide, employees take between one and two weeks in addition to legal leave. But the practice is supervised: you have to have the agreement of your whole team and your manager.
Everywhere, the bet in place unlimited holidays has a same argument: it is a question of attracting the best talents and retaining them, in a highly competitive world of work. But some companies, like the Rennes start-up YesWeDev, have abandoned this practice. When the start-up became bigger, it became difficult to give so much freedom to employees, who otherwise rarely used this right.