9 Companies That Offer Unlimited Vacation Days
Unlimited time off: an emerging benefit
We all love time off -- the more, the better -- and after a year of canceled and suspended vacations due to the pandemic, an unlimited vacation policy at work sounds like a nice perk.
However, a relatively small number of companies currently offer unlimited paid time off. According to XpertHR's 2021 paid leave survey, only 4% of the 639 companies surveyed offer this benefit. But favor is growing among employees: A 2019 Metlife employee benefit trends survey found that unlimited paid time off was the top emerging benefit that interested the 2,675 employees surveyed.
In any case, if you're looking for a job and evaluating employee benefits like 401(k) matching contributions, dependent care flexible spending accounts, and flexible time off, you may see unlimited vacation on the menu. This is hardly a comprehensive list, but here are nine companies offering this perk.
Netflix
What the company does: international streaming service.
Unlimited vacation policy: Employees are trusted to take as much time off as they need or want without being irresponsible about it. The company culture means that many people are working in the evenings and on weekends, so Netflix trusts that its employees won't abuse the perk of having unlimited vacation.
As Netflix Co-CEO Reed Hastings explained it in his 2020 book, "No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention," co-written with Erin Meyer, an employee once said to him: "We are all working online some weekends, responding to emails at odd hours, taking off an afternoon for personal time. We don't track hours worked per day or week. Why are we tracking days of vacation per year?"
Hastings agreed, and that led to the unlimited vacation policy.
Oracle
What the company does: This well-known multinational computer software company is based in Austin, Texas.
Unlimited vacation policy: Oracle offers its unlimited vacation time to salaried employees (those who can't get overtime), and they call it "flexible vacation."
As with most, if not all, companies in this list, employees must get preapproval from their manager so they aren't going on a vacation when the company really needs them.
If you're an Oracle employee who isn't eligible for flexible vacation, you'll receive 13 vacation days a year for the first three years -- and after that, 18 days.
What the company does: LinkedIn produces a widely used global professional network on the internet.
Unlimited vacation policy: The company is well known for trying to give employees a work-life balance. In addition to unlimited vacation time, employees receive 17 paid holidays a year, and in April 2021, the entire company received a paid week off. Other than a few core people who continued working but were given time off later, most of the company's 15,900 employees were given a week off to recharge.
Another work-life balance perk: LinkedIn also has a long company tradition of giving everyone one day a month, called an InDay, short for Investment Day, during which employees can focus on projects they personally want to pursue that have nothing to do with their daily work routines.
Evernote
What the company does: It designs Evernote, an app designed for note-taking, organizing task management and archiving. It's based in Redwood, California.
Unlimited vacation policy: The company has the full benefits you would expect, including medical, dental, vision, life and disability insurance, and a 401(k). It also has unlimited vacation time, and along with it, Evernote encourages employees to use it by giving them a $1,000 annual vacation stipend.
Asana
What the company does: It produces a web and mobile task management app that aims to foster teamwork and productivity without email. Asana's headquarters are in San Francisco.
Unlimited vacation policy: There's not much to it: It's unlimited vacation days. Asana also offers benefits such as a health insurance, a 401(k) and life insurance, as well as perks like gym reimbursements and 16 weeks of paid parental leave for all new parents.
Roku
What the company does: It manufactures a brand of hardware digital media players and is based out of San Francisco.
Unlimited vacation policy: Like many of these companies, it simply offers unlimited vacation time. As Roku states on its website, "for salaried employees, we don't track vacation or have official holidays. Instead, you can take as much vacation as you think is appropriate, as long as you get your job done and don't impact the team's work."
Like the other companies on this list, Roku offers other benefits, including medical, wellness and financial benefits. At its headquarters, it also provides free snacks.
Hubspot
What the company does: It makes internet marketing software to help companies attract new customers. It's based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Unlimited vacation policy: The company offers unlimited vacation as well as something called "vacation quota relief." If you're a salesperson, you can cut your quota in half twice a year, making it easy to hit the quota -- and take a vacation. Also worth noting: After five years with the company, employees get a four-week paid sabbatical to take a vacation or learn a new skill or just recharge and relax.
Chegg
What the company does: The company, based in Santa Clara, California, is an education technology company that provides digital and physical textbook rentals, online tutoring and other student services.
Unlimited vacation policy: Chegg has an unlimited vacation policy, but as with many companies, employees are sometimes reluctant to use it, which happened last year, probably due to the pandemic. So the company gave its employees some mandatory paid time off, just to make sure people took vacations.
What the company does: As you probably are well aware, Twitter is a micro-blogging and social media communications platform headquartered in San Francisco.
Unlimited vacation policy: Along with the unlimited vacation time, there are many benefits that you would expect from a company of Twitter's size. For instance, the company offers its employees 20 weeks of maternity and paternity leave, free snacks and free breakfast, lunch and dinner five days a week.
9 companies that offer unlimited vacation days:
-- Netflix.
-- Oracle.
-- LinkedIn.
-- Evernote.
-- Asana.
-- Roku.
-- Hubspot.
-- Chegg.
-- Twitter.
