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We’ve all been there. Even though Americans earn paid time off and some are given unlimited vacation time, many of us still fear the consequences of taking some extended time off from work. Mark Douglas, CEO of the marketing and advertising company SteelHouse, agrees with this theory. In 2010, when SteelHouse was launched, Douglas said this about vacationing employees:
“If you have a caged lion that was born in captivity, and then you open the cage, they back up more into the cage. They don’t start running free,” he told Business Insider. “When we first started telling people they had unlimited vacation, they didn’t even know how to interpret that.”
Spot on, right? So, Douglas being the apparently dope boss he is, came up with a solution: literally PAY employees to take vacation days. And that’s exactly what SteelHouse does, they give their employees $2000 to take a vacation. Douglas says because of this, his employees have been more productive than ever.
Via Business Insider:
If you work at SteelHouse, the company will pay you $2,000 a year to go anywhere in the world and do anything you want (provided it’s not illegal). You can spread it out across multiple trips or blow it all at once; Douglas leaves it up to the team member.
The trust goes both ways, he adds. Employees who buy their plane tickets on a Monday will get reimbursed by Tuesday. If the employee can’t front the cash, SteelHouse will let them use the company credit card to book the flight. Once people return from their trips, they can submit their expenses for reimbursement up to the $2,000 cap.
The only qualifier is that Douglas will not give the employees the $2000 straight up. He is adamant that it be spent on vacation. “I actually want you to go somewhere and enjoy yourself,” he said.
Sounds like a hell of a CEO if you asked me. The more CEOs realize how important employees’ quality-of-life is to their business, the better off the world will be.
[h/t Business Insider]
