Creative vacation plans

With recent college graduates entering the workforce, and current employees using summer down time to contemplate career moves, this is also a time for fresh starts. In order to entice some of this coveted talent, some employers are proposing unique and interesting hooks: paid vacation before the employee starts working (or “pre-cation” as the trend is known).

Are these employers trendsetters or shortsighted? Is it good business judgment to provide a benefit to employees before they’ve earned their stripes? While vacation time is a privilege and not a right, it is a privilege that Americans increasingly have grown to expect.

And if a talented, highly qualified individual is mulling over multiple job offers, the company which provides a more creative and competitive vacation package may just win out. For these trendsetting employers, not only do they hope to lure top talent, but they expect that these new hires will start work refreshed and recharged, ready to hit the ground running. Anybody who has ever transitioned from one job to another without taking time off in between knows that it can be challenging to settle into a new routine after the hectic notice period.

For employers who provide pre-cations, spending these vacation dollars is worth every penny if their new hires are able start the job focused on their new objectives, instead of being bogged down by personal concerns lingering from a hasty transition.

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For those employers who are not quite ready to pay their employees before they actually show up for work, another hot HR trend is unlimited vacation time.

Some employers believe that switching from a pot of vacation time (even a large one) to an unlimited amount of time off provides their employees with flexibility and the freedom to take vacation time at their discretion.

While this sounds like Utopia, many employees report disliking these “all you can eat” vacation buffets, fearing that there is no certainty about expectations for them and that they will be considered greedy for taking too much time. To resolve this issue and to address the problem of some workers leaving hard-earned vacation days on the table (even when they have discretion to take unlimited days off) some employers are implementing mandatory minimum vacation-time policies – literally requiring their employees to take time off.

For the group of people who simply cannot (or will not) get away during the workweek, some employers choose to send their hardworking employees on all-expenses paid weekend vacations or have company-wide vacations, where employees and their families vacation together on the company’s dime.

Other employers are focusing on rewarding their loyal and high-performing employees with vacations-plus. Some employers allow employees to take paid sabbaticals after a set number of years of service. Others reward employees with vacation bonuses.

Perhaps the polar opposite to the paid sabbatical is something Manhattan has been perfecting for years – the “Summer Friday.” The Summer Friday, usually implemented from Memorial Day to Labor Day, is the embodiment of the idea that sometimes an afternoon or day off is really all an overworked employee needs to feel refreshed and ready to tackle Monday mornings

These are not your traditional vacation policies. But with employees – especially millennials – increasingly expecting flexibility and a good work-life balance, these are new and creative approaches employers may want to consider in an effort to hire and retain top-notch employees. •

Jessica Schachter Jewell is a labor and employment attorney with Nixon Peabody LLP’s Providence office.

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