Virgin Group Gets on Board with BrainSell’s Unlimited Vacation Policy

BrainSell has had an unlimited vacation policy since their inception. Virgin America and Virgin U.K. recently announced they have the same vacation policy. BrainSell hopes that companies will shift from the stigma that you are being a “bad” employee when you take a vacation.

Topsfield, MA (PRWEB) September 29, 2014 —

Creating a workplace that encourages a personal life is one of the best ways to attract and keep the best talent. This is the basic thought process behind some of the most successful companies in the technology sector. BrainSell, who has experienced strong year-after-year growth since they started in 1994, were early adopters of this sort of ideology.

Recently, Virgin Group has been heavily publicized in the Huffington Post (amongst others) for allowing their employees to take unlimited vacation time. BrainSell’s President, Jim Ward, is hopeful that entrepreneurial minds like Richard Branson of Virgin will become the industry norm.

“I have a great deal of respect for Mr. Branson, yet what’s interesting is what I had come to believe when I started BrainSell,” said Ward. “The basic premise is that people are good and as adults they know what’s reasonable. Why not let the individual determine their needs for time off as it aligns to what the business entities needs are? I have always said to each team member, ‘you’re an entrepreneur within an entrepreneurial company.’”

Branson wrote in an excerpt from his new e-book, The Virgin Way, “It is left to the employee to decide if and when he or she feels like taking a few hours, a day, a week or a month off, the assumption being that they are only going to do it when they feel a hundred percent comfortable…that their absence will not in any way damage the business — or, for that matter, their careers!” Branson wrote in an excerpt from his new book, The Virgin Way, published on Virgin’s blog.

The announcement comes at a time where many American’s are weary about taking time off. The Huffington Post had run a similar column in August, 2014, titled Americans Are Too Afraid and Stressed to Take Days off from Work, about how Americans are scared to go on vacations. The biggest reason that people don’t take vacations is that they would, “come back to a mountain of work,” according to the column.

Branson states that his inspiration for unlimited vacation time came from Netflix, the popular web-based TV and video streaming company. BrainSell aims to carry the torch with these fellow companies in hopes everyone’s work environment can become just that much better.