Microsoft has granted unlimited leave to its employees in the US. The innovation is called discretionary leave and will apply to all salaried employees in the United States starting January 16.

Unlimited leave means that the employee has the right to take time off whenever he needs it, without being limited to the minimum period stipulated in the contract. In particular, Microsoft also provides 10 paid holidays per year, sick days, and days off for a variety of good reasons. In addition, the new rule means that new employees do not have to wait until they have accumulated the required number of vacation days to take a vacation. The limitation in such systems is only the work process: if an additional day off does not affect the work of a particular employee, there will be no complaints against him.

How, when and where we do our work has changed dramatically. And as it developed, upgrading our holiday policy to a more flexible model was the natural next step.

Hourly workers will not be granted unlimited leave. Microsoft says federal and state laws make it difficult to grant such employees unlimited leave. This also applies to non-US employees, but is subject to the laws of the countries they live in.

It’s worth noting that Microsoft isn’t the first and only company to offer unlimited vacations to its employees. The same plan is followed by Salesforce, LinkedIn, Oracle, Netflix and a number of other companies.