More Freedom Considered for Virgins: Empower Through Trust

Okay, the title may be somewhat misleading, but Richard Branson has announced a policy for a small number of employees at the Virgin Group. Essentially he is copying something that is occurring quite frequently among tech companies in the Silicon Valley and just so happens to be practiced in my company as well. Okay, get to the point, Joseph. That practice is allowing select employees to take as much vacation time as they choose. On the face of this, it sounds like a disastrous human resource strategy. Once you open up the hen-house, all the chickens will be gone. In truth, at my company, for example, the most committed and dedicated staff need to be encouraged to take personal time. Moreover the freedom and autonomy granted to them produces incalculable levels of engagement and productivity. Borrowing from the work of Daniel Pink and his breakthrough book, Drive, most human beings are motivated by purpose, mastery, and autonomy. While I do not encourage this as a business practice for every individual and every organization, in my company and as it’s being considered at Virgin and Netflix, select individuals who already demonstrate a powerful work ethic should be managed based on projects, not time. In a world where the boundary between personal and work life has been seriously blurred by smart phones and technology, why wouldn’t you wish to give the respect, authority, and autonomy of scheduling work time and vacation time to your highest producers? If you’re worried about people abusing the policy, they are probably the wrong people to whom the policy should be applied. By contrast, people who take a true ownership stake in your business will likely under utilize time off, even if its provided on a buffet.