Microsoft giving workers unlimited leave days

3 years ago 1

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Microsoft will give its employees unlimited leave days in the US, The Verge reports.

It cited an internal memorandum sent to employees by Microsoft chief people officer Kathleen Hogan on Wednesday.

The new unlimited vacation policy is called “Discretionary Time Off” and applies to all salaried US Microsoft workers.

“How, when, and where we do our jobs has dramatically changed,” Hogan said in the memo. “And as we’ve transformed, modernising our vacation policy to a more flexible model was a natural next step.”

Alongside the unlimited time off, workers get ten corporate holidays, leaves of absence, sick and mental time off and time away for jury duty or bereavement.

In addition, a one-time payout will be given to employees in April based on how many vacation days they did not take.

Workers outside of the US and those paid hourly will not qualify for the unlimited leave days due to different laws and regulations applying to their employment.

The Verge noted that several other tech companies offer similar unlimited leave days to their staff, including LinkedIn (which is Microsoft-owned), Netflix, Oracle, and Salesforce.

Microsoft cutting fewer jobs than other tech giants

Microsoft is one of many US tech companies that cut jobs in 2022 amid slowing revenue growth.

However, its layoffs haven’t been as extensive as many other companies’ retrenchments, with less than 1% of workers affected.

In November last year, Facebook parent Meta Platforms announced it would retrench about 13% of its workforce.

Amazon also recently told staff it plans to shed 6% of its corporate employees, the same portion of Google employees facing the axe in early 2023.

Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter also saw the company retrenching around 50% of its workforce, although Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey acknowledged the company’s staff complement grew too quickly.