(How) can your employees buy extra holidays?

Traditional statutory holidays plus statutory holidays are pretty tight to balance work and home. Hence the success of non-statutory holidays. You can allocate these according to your own rules and choices:

• As a collective or individual benefit;
• Linked to certain conditions, such as age and seniority
• Paid or unpaid.

But even with non-statutory holidays, an employee may not make up for it. Especially as the conditions for taking time credit were also recently tightened. At the same time, of course, there is a limit to what you as an employer are willing and able to give in terms of holidays. That is why this option also exists: exchanging salary for holidays.

With labour systems that may vary, with school holidays, with chores that need to be done while some 'me-time' is also needed... it isn’t easy to put the puzzle together privately. That in addition to their statutory and non-statutory holidays 'buying' additional holidays is also an option you can offer as an employer. You can arrange that extra holiday in a budget-neutral way via a cafeteria plan or via an individual salary exchange (e.g. converting the end-of-year bonus into extra holidays). If the work allows it, why not allow it?

Interest in the 'pay for holiday' exchange appears to be high, our survey shows. Companies are increasingly offering the option as a choice: additional holidays are now an option at more than a third (34%) of employers with a cafeteria plan (up from 28% in 2021). Also, that extra holiday never becomes an acquired benefit: you continue to decide whether it is an option and, if so, how many days.