Imagine walking into work one day and being told you're getting four months off -- fully paid.
Would you pursue a long lost dream caring for animals, re-do your home or just spend as much time as you possibly could with your kids?
Those are all dreams that employees at a Minnesota-based advertising agency made a reality when the firm let them use 500 fully-paid hours worth of their summer to do whatever they wanted, reports local news station KARE 11. After anticipating a cyclical lull in business and with plenty of cash in reserve, the partners at Barrie, D'Rozario, Murphy thought giving workers time off was a bit of a no-brainer.
Partner Stuart D'Rozario said he hopes the quality time will have a positive impact on employees, but the purpose of the experiment wasn’t driven by business.
"If the only thing that comes out of it is that everyone got time to do great things and have an amazing four months which are the best times of their lives then that would be well worth it," D'Rozario told KARE 11.
The agency isn’t the first company to support worker passions. Google has traditionally allowed employee’s 20 percent of their work time to work on their own projects, a policy they recently pulled back on, according to some sources. Meanwhile, New York-based design firm Sagmeister and Walsh closes down for a full-year sabbatical every seven years to give staff a time to recharge their batteries.
Related
Before You Go
