What is a ‘Duvet Day’?
One annual leave trend you may have heard of spreading to the UK from trendy Silicon Valley firms is the so-called ‘duvet day’. A growing number of companies allow them, and they often make a statement about the organisation’s culture. This article from the Daily Mail takes a detailed look at the practice, but here we’ll just give you the basics.
Why does it help your employees?
Sometimes also called a personal day, a duvet day policy is a benefit as part of an employee’s holiday allowance. This can let staff take days off at very short notice. When they return to work they discuss with their line manager and decide whether to take the day off from their holiday allowance or as unpaid leave.
Different employees find this flexibility useful in different ways. Many employees will use them after a heavy night, or on those mornings when leaving their bed seems like a horrible idea (hence the name), letting them have the day off without having to invent vague symptoms of a supposed illness. Employees who have children, or care for elderly parents, find that personal days provide flexibility to deal with unexpected calls for their time.
How can it help your company?
Companies offering duvet days benefit from being seen as flexible and understanding of their team’s needs. Crucial in a world where the competition for the best staff is growing ever more intense. A duvet day policy also encourages staff to take days off from annual leave. This saves sick days for genuine illness, creating a more honest relationship and making absence easier to track and manage.
One drawback of long duvet days is the risk of increasing your administrative burden. You probably do enough admin handling normal holiday requests, without having to track and manage duvet days as well. The simplest solution is to use a top quality online leave management system, which can track duvet days and easily deduct them from an employee’s remaining holiday allowance.
Share your thoughts
Does your firm allow duvet days, or is it something you’ve thought about bringing in? What other benefits in kind do you use to attract the best talent in an increasingly competitive recruitment market? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
