Bart Lorang, co-founder and CEO of the Denver-based tech company FullContact, introduced the "paid paid vacation" in 2012. The FullContact company would give employees $7,500 to finance a vacation trip, as an add up to the standard 15 days paid vacation plus federal holidays. The $7,500 is on top of employee's full salaries.
Employees just have to follow three simple rules: No checking work emails, texts, or calls. No working, period. The rule is simple; employees have to actually go on an actual vacation or they don't get the money at all.l
Brad McCarty, FullContact's communications director, stated: "The really big names in tech all focus on the same idea, that employee happiness has to come before everything else. While it's really difficult to measure that return on investment from a dollar standpoint, it's not difficult to measure what happens when someone returns from a Paid Paid Vacation: you see, without fail, people shining brighter, working harder and more excited to get back into the swing of things."
CEO Bart Lorang said that the said vacation policy has improved the day-to-day structure of their company. It's what the CEO calls "an amazing forcing function to eliminate single points of failure."
Lorang is nudging their employees to take real vacations; a vacation that genuinely renders an employee inaccessible. Bart Lorang made a culture in the company, that a person should practice work independence.
The CEO stated: "But here's the thing," "If people know they will be disconnecting and going off the grid for an extended period of time, they might actually keep that in mind as they help build the company." This allows employees of Lorang to empower colleagues, documenting their code more clearly, and generally sharing knowledge.
The FullContact company's vacation policy makes their employees happier and more relaxed, because their employees know they "aren't the last line of defense."
Lorang said, it also pays off on a macro level, that at the end of the day, their company has improved.
