Jason Freedman has it right. He wrote a post recently about 42 Floors vacation policy – which consists of a mandatory two weeks of vacation on your first day.
Wait, wha?????
That’s right, they start paying you and ask you to show up two weeks later. The premise being that we don’t really take vacation when we’re consumed with a job, and when we do – we’re still engaged with the emails that flood in, the issues back home with the team, and thinking through the next big steps for the company.
I witnessed this firsthand several weeks ago – and am now completely convinced there is no better way to start an employment relationship. My boyfriend started a new job internally at the company he works for and managed to work it so that our trip to San Francisco fell on the week between jobs. He left one job on a Thursday, and started the new one on a Monday approximately 10 days later.
He didn’t take his laptop on the trip. He didn’t even check is work email address while we were there. Not even once!
I was agog. Being tied to my job(s), the idea of not checking email for a week would throw me into a tizzy. But I saw how relaxed he was – and how he was able to truly be present in the vacation -and I was envious.
He started his new job full of energy and excited. Because he had the time off, his brain was completely cleared of all the clutter and chaos of the last job. And that is the kind of employee I want to show up on Day #1.
