Microsoft is giving its US employees unlimited time off
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- Microsoft is giving its salaried US employees unlimited time off.
- Employees will still have corporate holidays, and days off for reasons like illness and jury duty.
- Employees who work hourly or outside the US aren't eligible due to different laws and regulations.
Salaried US employees at Microsoft are getting unlimited time off starting January 16, The Verge reported.
The new time-off policy is called "Discretionary Time Off," according to a memo seen by The Verge from Kathleen Hogan, Microsoft's chief people officer.
"How, when, and where we do our jobs has dramatically changed," Hogan said in the email to employees. "And as we've transformed, modernizing our vacation policy to a more flexible model was a natural next step."
In addition to the unlimited time off policy, salaried US employees will get 10 corporate holidays off, can take leaves of absence, and have other days off for illness and mental health, jury duty, and bereavement, per The Verge.
Unused vacation days from the previous time-off policy will be paid out in April, The Verge reported.
Microsoft didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment ahead of publication.
Hourly employees and those working outside the US are not eligible for the unlimited time off policy due to different laws and regulations, the memo said. Microsoft employees outside the US will keep existing vacation benefits.
Microsoft has experimented with other employee benefits in the past, like trying a four-day workweek at its Japanese subsidiary in August 2019. The experiment found that productivity in the office increased by 39.9% compared to the previous August.
It's also among tech titans that has allowed most of its employees to work from home part time. Last year, the company tried to get employees back in the office for at least half of the week, but by June admitted that "a back-to-office 'normal' may not happen this year."