Microsoft has offered their United States workers unlimited time off work after they announced their new policy. Kathleen Hogan, Microsoft’s chief people officer, was the one who announced this to the employees.
The new policy is named "Discretionary Time Off," which applies to all US workers who are salaried in the company.
"How, when, and where we do our jobs has dramatically changed. And as we’ve transformed, modernizing our vacation policy to a more flexible model was a natural next step," Kathleen Hogan said in the memo.
The changes made by the new policy will start on the 16th of January, which means the company's US employees can take leaves without waiting for the traditional vacation period. Recall that the company joined the long list of tech establishments that laid off several employees in 2022.
Microsoft explained that it will now be fixing ten corporate holidays to its calendar. Workers in this tech company can take time off work when sick, time away for jury duty or bereavement, mental health time, and many other reasons.
Going by the new Microsoft workers' benefits, those employees who don't use the time offs will get a huge payout sometime in April. However, these new Microsoft workers' benefits do not apply to those who work hourly within the company or those who live outside the United States.
Microsoft gave their reason for not offering the same package to those living outside the United States or those on an hourly wage. They said the federal and state wage and hour laws make it difficult to offer unlimited time off to those living outside the United States and hourly workers. Those working outside the United States will continue to abide by their old vacation policy as many countries' laws are different from that of the United States.
Although many have commended Microsoft for providing such an updated policy for their US workers, they are not the first tech company that implements the time off work policy. Microsoft-owned LinkedIn, Oracle, and Netflix all offer similar unlimited time off policies for workers in the United States.
More Microsoft Employees to Work From Home
Microsoft claims to be moving a step ahead of many companies as they are trying to increase the number of workers working from home.
Kathleen Hogan - Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer, had earlier written to Microsoft employees saying the company is now embracing a more flexible working environment.
"Work site (the physical space where you work, e.g. office, center, home, mobile): We recognize that some employees are required to be onsite and some roles and businesses are better suited for working away from the worksite than others. However, for most roles, we view working from home part of the time (less than 50%) as now standard – assuming manager and team alignment," Microsoft said in 2020.
They mentioned they would only be accommodating on-site working environments for important positions. However, they reiterated that those mandated to work in the office should do so without breaking the law to avoid legal issues with them.
"While we’ve shared that we will challenge long-held assumptions and seek to be on the forefront of what is possible leveraging technology, we have also communicated that we are not committing to having every employee work from anywhere, as we believe there is value in employees being together in the workplace," Microsoft added.