I offered 12 weeks vacation to my staff in exchange for lower wages (but paid during 12 weeks off). Nobody was interested, and they wanted to stay with the current two weeks paid. So as an employer, I have never had anyone interested in doing a 16 hour week.
I have had many ex-employees (and an ex-partner) who were paid for 40 hours a week, but only worked 16.
To answer your questions directly. 1. They are not easy to find, nor are they often demanded. 2. I don't think it has to be greenfield.
Interesting. If the staff thought they would have to work through those 12 weeks of vacation anyway... or that it would be impractical to actually take 3 months vacation (or every Friday off), they probably wouldn't risk taking the salary cut. In our society the money feels more valuable than the time.
If the staff thought they would have to work through those 12 weeks of vacation anyway...
This is something I wonder about. I have found that, for whatever reason, social norms maybe, managers tend to view working part-time as somehow "cheating", even if they are paying less. So, when you clock out early, before everyone else, there is pressure to stick around and not "abandon" the rest of the team. I could see this being a major problem for a lot of people and a disincentive to accept a part-time offer like the one mentioned above.
Also, I wonder how many of those employees were afraid they would appear "lazy" and be evaluated poorly if they accepted the offer.
its a small manufacturing business. They would not have had to work the 12 weeks.. They simply weren't interested. I was surprised, since it is a rule I wanted for myself. So I made the rule anyway.
My engineer wants to take a month off, but she is doing it as a unpaid leave. She had already saved her living expenses for the time she would be off, so it didn't matter to her.
B: What is your unpaid time off policy? Could your employees take 4 weeks off and receive their regular 2 weeks vacation pay? (Specifically, can they do this upon request. I understand that your engineer is doing this, but I don't know if that's available to everyone as a rule.)
If I was given the option of making 100% pay with a relaxed unpaid time off policy, or making 80% pay with a 20% PTO policy, I would choose the former option. That way I can decide exactly how much vacation/unpaid time as I want.
Do you know if matching up holiday allowances with staff partners was an issue? e.g., I could get away with taking months off or working on the road, but my wife only has the typical 20 days allowance here in Australia with about a week of it fixed at the end of the year when their office closes.
What was the difference in pay with the 12 weeks of vacation?
Given the norms in the USA I, as an employee, would never initiate such an arrangement. I feel like it would result in at the very least an indelible assumption of laziness by my new employers, if not a retraction of the original job offer.
I have had many ex-employees (and an ex-partner) who were paid for 40 hours a week, but only worked 16.
To answer your questions directly. 1. They are not easy to find, nor are they often demanded. 2. I don't think it has to be greenfield.