KPN the first large Dutch employer to offer unlimited vacation days
KPN is the first large Dutch company to offer its employees an unlimited number of vacation days. The telecom company set this down in the collective bargaining agreement, the Financieele Dagblad reported.
“Our employees are allowed to decide for themselves how they use their vacation leave,” Bart Webers of KPN told the newspaper. The company wants to give employees more room to figure out their work-life balance, he said. “Keeping track of whether you still have enough vacation days on your counter does not fit with that.”
This does not mean that employees can decide on a whim not to go into the office. Any leave still has to be approved. “Of course, you always take time off in consultation with your manager,” Webers said.
According to the FD, the involved trade unions were less than enthused about adding unlimited leave days to the collective bargaining agreement, saying that not all employees benefited equally. When KPN experimented with unlimited leave, senior and management staff were very happy with it. But among call center employees, for example, it led to mutual “suspicion.” Peer pressure and schedules would thwart this independence, the unions said.
Several small and medium-sized businesses are already offering unlimited leave, employers’ organization AWVN told FD. Employees want fewer rules and more room to maneuver between work and life. “This fits with the trend of more autonomy for employees,” Jannes van der Velde of the AWVN said.
