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26 September 2014, 12.20am AEST

Branson unlimited holiday plan for Virgin

blazes trail others should follow
AUTHOR

1.
Cary Cooper
Distinguished Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University
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Cary Cooper does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit
from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.
Provides funding as a Founding Partner of The Conversation.

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Richard Branson: shortly to receive 150,000 job applications. Steve Parsons/PA Wire

Richard Branson has introduced a radical new policy for Virgin employees,
offering his personal staff unlimited holiday rather than a fixed number of days in
a given year.
Announcing the idea on his blog, Branson said those working in his family office,
his investment team, marketing, brand and PR teams and the Virgin Unite
foundation could take holiday without first seeking permission or having to keep
track of the number of days they were taking off. As long, that is, as they felt
100% comfortable that they were up to date with their work and their absence
would not affect the business or their careers.
The policy, or indeed non-policy, is a modern solution to a modern problem our
jobs are infringing on our personal lives more than ever and the nine-to-five life is
becoming a thing of the past. We talk constantly of how our devices bring work
into our homes but few meaningful solutions are forthcoming. If staff are expected
to be flexible with their time, why should they expect any less in return?
It is good to see an employer signalling to his employees that he values them so
highly he is prepared to offer them such a generous benefit. Branson says he has
taken his inspiration from online video subscription service Netflix but other than
these two companies, such a policy is relatively unheard of.
We can presume that the underlying psychological contract here is that Virgin is
prepared to support the health and well-being of staff through this holiday benefit

but that it would expect in return, implicitly, the loyalty and commitment of the
employees to the aims and objectives of the business.
Any psychological contract worth its salt has to be of benefit to both employers
and employees. The more employers meet the needs and aspirations of their
employees, the more the employees should reciprocate with a commitment to
making the business more successful.
Employers are increasingly buying into the idea that a healthy workforce is a
productive one these days and it may be that Virgin is joining them. As early as
1851, British social reformer John Ruskin noted that for people to be happy in
their work, they need to be fit for it, not have too much of it and have some sense
that they can achieve success in it.
More recently, a wealth of research has shown that workers need to rebalance
their lives. They need to minimise long and unsocial hours and take respite away
from their duties as well as the technology now associated with it. They need to
spend time with their families and friends, in order, in the medium term, to deliver
a better and efficient service. Unlimited holiday would seem like the perfect
solution.
But the success of a scheme such as Bransons depends on the extent to which
employees are involved in the decision to introduce it. The general principle
should be that employers survey their employees about what would make their
work less stressful and their job more satisfying before working with them to
design an appropriate policy. This is an idea suggested decades ago by Sigmund
Freud, who believed the daily work of earning a livelihood affords particular
satisfaction when it has been selected by free choice.
Virgins unlimited holidays should also be part of a larger strategy to develop the
health and well-being of employees but it is refreshing to see a company be
prepared to think the unthinkable to come up with something truly innovative in
employee benefits. With technology interrupting our respite more than ever, we
need to come up with new solutions. As Mark Twain once wrote: If you always
do what you always did, youll always get, what you always got.
We need more companies like Virgin. So many proudly state that their people are
their most valuable resource but so few translate it into meaningful actions. Lets
keep in mind the words of Vincent van Gogh about creating balance in our lives,
and the dangers of workaholism: I put my heart and soul into my work, and lost
my mind in the process.