Each year we see more stats about how Americans aren't using all of their vacation days—even start-ups have popped up that help employees trade in their days off for cash, making it an alluring prospect to sit at a desk instead of on the beach. According to research by Project Time Off, 55 percent of Americans did not use all their vacation in 2015—that's a total of 658 million vacation days left unused. But all is not lost when it comes to finding the time to put that out-of-office on. In fact, a new study has revealed that there are some companies actively encouraging their workers to take a break.
Glassdoor, a company review website, just released a survey that ranked the 25 highest-rated companies for vacation and paid time off. The rankings where determined solely on employee reviews. So, who topped the list? Biotechnology company Amgen, Inc., headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California, came in at no. one with three weeks of vacation and two additional weeks around the Fourth of July and Christmas.
Across the county in New York City, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center took the no. 2 two spot, giving employees a chance to catch up on sleep with 20 vacation days, plus floating holidays, sick days, and personal days. Better still, the workers commented that they don’t feel guilty about taking time off. "Nobody asks questions or makes you feel guilty for taking the time either, which is a breath of fresh air," said one employee in the report.
This comes in stark contrast to another survey released this year revealing the majority of people between the ages of 18 to 34 feel shamed for taking time off work. According to the 2016 Alamo Family Vacation Survey, 59 percent of millennials polled reported being “vacation shamed” by colleagues for taking (or even just planning) their trips, even though they enjoy more options than ever when it comes to exciting ways to travel.
Another company that topped the list: IKEA, which came in at no. 3. Employees there receive three weeks per year when they start, five weeks per year after five years, and seven weeks per year after ten years. I guess you need all that time to figure out how to put together the 10,000 pieces of a Grundtal/Norrviken.
Check out the full list below:
- Amgen
- Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
- IKEA
- Monsanto Company
- Salesforce
- General Motors
- Costco Wholesale
- Capital One
- Accenture
- Ericsson-Worldwide
- American Express
- Kaiser Permanente
- JPMorgan Chase & Co.
- KPMG
- Nokia
- Federal Express
- Intel
- T-Mobile
- Microsoft
- Deloitte
- Liberty Mutual
- Progressive
- Humana
- Eastman Chemical