As we ask our employees to bring their “A” game to work every day to achieve our mission, we believe it’s our responsibility to create an environment where people can do their best work. A key component of this is supporting our employees with benefits that matter most to them. This is why today we’re announcing enhancements to our U.S. corporate employee benefits in three areas that employees consistently rank among the most important: having time to renew; saving for the future; and flexibility needed to spend time with new children.
And yet another technology company investing just a little bit more into its employees. I think these changes bring Microsoft more in line with Google’s policies, and from a European point of view this is still pretty abysmal, but it’s a major step forward for new fathers and mothers, and that’s a great thing.
The U.S. has an idiotic tradition when it comes to vacation/pto. In some cases it’s simply crazy (at one job my cousin had no vacation days for the first 2 years, well, he left them before that). My sis has been working at a company in the u.s. for 3+ years now, has 15 days/year. Other relative has 10/y. And there’s those people who don’t even use up their days, for some kind of idiotic false sense of fear or loyalty or whatever.
And don’t even get me started on parental leave (yeah, you wish) in the U.S. I’m not talking about netflix or google, I’m talking about 99.99% of companies where you know, the 99.99% of people actually work.
There’s no point in working for work’s sake. Yeah. some lunatics would argue with that, but I can’t really care about those opinions – they should go be drones if they wish.
Providing enough time off when the people need it – parental l. or otherwise – should really be part of any job negotiation. And there’s nobody on this planet that could convince me that less than a 20-25wd/y can be acceptable in any circumstance.
Amen to that! Can’t agree more with you, especially that comment…
l3v1,
It blows my tiny mind that average weekly earnings in that sector in the UK are only £450. I can’t imagine living comfortably* in London, Cambridge or Oxford as a single person with no dependants on less than three times that amount, meaning that significantly more than half of the sector lives – by my definition at least – on a wage that leads them to live precariously.
*: “Comfortably” here means what it used to mean to my parents generation: the ability to save a significant portion of one’s salary, to pay a principal-plus-interest mortgage on a decent house (not a flat), to be able to afford the things that make life worth living and to take one or two holidays a year.
Edited 2015-08-07 02:11 UTC
Really? You need average weekly earnings of at least 1350 Pound? 70.200 per year?
And you think an entire generation comes from the kind of “comfortable” that you describe?
I am calling “rich kid and luxury!” on you….and I am a bit jeaulous
London is extremely expensive. 70.000 GBP per year, depending on the situation (kids, etc), could mean that you never save any money, ever.
Or given the recent layoffs, they should be wary of wanting too much time off.
Yeah, the phrase Careful what you wish for comes to mind.
Isn’t doing so hot in these stakes. A father gets exactly one day leave, to register the child’s birth. Mothers get a low-ball 16 weeks, with their salary paid through, but capped at a certain ceiling.
I also recently discovered that the Netherlands hasn’t got a single official public holiday, but that’s another issue.
Really? Not even a Boy-Stuck-his-Finger-in-Dyke day? I’m sure they get the day off for the usual commercialist holidays like New Year’s and X’mas, right?
Our treatment of women in the workplace is indeed archaic as fuck, but the public holiday part is completely wrong. We have 11-12 official holidays, and a whole bunch more that are semi-official and will usually still result in days off (though this might not apply to all professions).
No, you’re wrong. Most people get those days off as a matter of course, but they are not official public holidays. It appears that by now Koningsdag is an official public holiday, so we’ve got one: http://publicholidays.eu/the-netherlands/
Hm, are you sure about that? The government website seems to call them official holidays.
http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/schoolvakanties/vraag-en-an…
I think that your reference may be confusing “national holidays” (= state related holidays) with “official holidays” (= both national and other recognised holidays).
I also find it a bit funny that you ‘lose’ the holiday when it’s in a weekend. In Belgium those are moved to the Friday before, the Monday after or a free to choose day (depending on the CAO).
Edited 2015-08-07 09:01 UTC
Yes, I’m pretty sure. Right now, I cannot locate the international labor organisation paper where I first encountered this fact first. I was looking into it because I actually encountered a minimal-benefits employment situation, with the minimum vacation days (20) and nothing else. The “feestdagen” are not vacation days; you probably will get time off for them, but not’s a legal right. Whether or not you get the time off depends on your CAO (collective labor agreement).
Interesting, I couldn’t find more information than the above link unfortunately.
Well the same goes for King’s day, it always depends on the CAO. Can’t just leave a patient dying there
In reality everyone gets those days of, or gets compensated for them in some other way (think hospital staff, police, the basic things to keep live going).
The best thing about religion? religious holidays
Heh, after wondering why this didn’t count for Easter and Whitsun, I had to look up some more details. Turns out that neither Easter nor Whitsun are legal holidays in Belgium, they’re just regular Sundays and therefore they don’t count. Easter Monday and Whitsun Monday are legal holidays however.
I enjoy learning about little useless facts like these.
Edited 2015-08-07 12:36 UTC
Good for the workers at microsoft. Could be better though. We got it better here. And I wish that every worker in the world could get it as we have it.
And I can even get as sick as I want to. And I can even get a heart for free. Without paying anything else than my tax. And I have my paycheck covered by the state, when I am sick.
Uhhh Wait… No one in USA want’s to pay between 40% and 60% tax anyway. Wich by the way, is the employers job to make shure it is payed correctly and from every single paycheck. The money you get payed, tax and everything else, are allready payed. (just not your rent and stuff like that)
Edited 2015-08-06 12:35 UTC