Little Victories

"You can't do too much for a good boss" was something my Dad used to say on occasions; he would qualify it by adding"...if you can find one" implying that good bosses were rarer than a snowflake in June. My Dad was of a generation of Workers whose relationship with Management was very much a 'them and us' affair. To some extent it probably still is in some industries, but it was writ large in the days when my Dad worked his way through a whole series of jobs as a French polisher, both out and about in banks and shops and less peripatetically, in factories.

"Little victories," were there to be won by the workers in their skirmishes with management, whether it was skiving off early (and still being paid) or some overtime wangled where the workload didn't justify it. Management of course were only too keen to extract the maximum output for the minimum remuneration, so it cut both ways. Then there were the things that my Dad, like many others I'm sure, 'won' at work. Briefly working in a sweet factory he came home one day with a bag of confectionary that he had 'won.' On another occasion he liberated a golf club head (goodness only knows how or indeed why). It was all petty little stuff of no great significance or value; technically I suppose one might call it theft, but largely it was stuff that otherwise would have gone in the bin.

Useful...

...less useful.

There was never any leeway or opportunity for a little victory in terms of holidays when my Dad worked in factories, which shut down for two weeks in summer (last week in July, first week in August). Do factories still do that? Or perhaps the question in this country now should be simply, are there still any factories? The two week summer shutdown was still commonplace in the 1980's when I was working at Midland Bank in Barking when a whole procession of Ford workers would come in for their Spanish pesetas or Greek drachmae to take on their holidays. As Foreign Clerk it was the busiest time of the year for me and I spent most of my Fridays doling out currency and travellers cheques.[1]

Had there been any advantage to gain in the holiday stakes  then I'm sure my Dad would have taken it; certainly if he worked for Virgin Group he would be rubbing his hands with glee at their recent announcement that their staff can take as much time off as they want, albeit with the proviso that their work is up to date or won't suffer and that their absence will not hurt the company. It is a brave move by Richard Branson to introduce this policy, but one which a company could only implement if they have confidence in their employees to manage their holiday efficiently and effectively. From the perspective of the employees, you would equally have to trust your bosses not to use this to your disadvantage. For such a scheme to work there needs to be mutual respect and maturity, because I can imagine that in some organisations, a similar scheme would be fraught with problems.

In my days of paid employment, 28 or 30 days holiday per year were the norm; in later years it was possible to buy or sell five additional days, and in most years five days could be carried forward if unused. With holiday dates allocated either on the basis of seniority or grade, depending on where one worked, there was usually the need for a little horse trading to get anywhere near the ideal of everyone getting the time off they wanted. Add an extra five, ten or even fifteen days per employee into the mix and things would get complicated. But would the Virgin idea actually equate to staff taking more time off? Not all staff I would say; and that is why in some ways the Virgin idea is quite crafty; some staff may well take less holiday, some may end up with extra work. Let me explain.

A thing of the past?

Let's say Bob works in an office where his work load fluctuates, either seasonally or for some other reason. He might figure that he can afford to take an extra week's holiday or even two during the quieter periods, but if he does so his bosses might say, "Hang on, if he can take an extra fortnight's break, he obviously has spare capacity, we can give him more work." Meanwhile Joe, who is looking to advance himself thinks, "If I take a week less in holiday, management will see how committed I am; it can do me no harm." Sam, on the other hand plods along, taking no more but no less holiday than usual, resenting Bob for the extra time he has off (perhaps leaving Sam to cover) and equally resenting Joe for creating the impression that everyone could perhaps lose a week's holiday. Since I never worked anywhere that had a scheme such as the one Virgin propose I can only speculate of course, but I did work with people who had to be convinced to take their holiday entitlement, not because of any grand plan to ingratiate themselves with the bosses but largely because of a certain amount of control freakery and the conceit that the place would fall apart in their absence. Equally I worked with people who supplemented their holidays with casual sickness and who would, under this sort of scheme, spend more time on holiday than at work.

As I say, for a scheme like this to work, management must be enlightened; they must not use the fact that some people take additional time off as either a stick to beat them with come appraisal time, nor an excuse to lump more work in their direction, nor use the fact that some people take less than their normal entitlement as some indicator of  commitment and loyalty (they could actually just be inefficient). Equally staff must not abuse the trust placed in them and take time off that leaves tasks uncompleted or late, or piles additional work on their colleagues.

You can call me an old sceptic if you like (it would by no means be the first time), but I could not see this working in a lot of companies. Presumably Sir Richard Branson feels that his employees are mature enough and his management progressive enough to handle this sort of scheme; I have worked in places where I can imagine there would have been abuse on both sides had this been in force. While Branson appears to be a pretty benevolent employer, I can imagine there are some who might copy his idea with more cynical intent.

"Put that flippin' BlackBerry away, you're on holiday!"

Given that we hear so much these days about people being permanently connected to the office even when they are on holiday, proof that this idea of Sir Richard's actually works will be if his employees are allowed to switch off their BlackBerry before they hit the beach.

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[1] I was not popular among my colleagues if I took holiday myself around that time of year!