Justin Lloyd

The week of July 4th is upon us once more, and sticking to Infinite Monkey Factory’s (IMF) personal time policy, our office will be officially closed all next week, as part of IMF’s ensured "vacation time" for each employee.

How does this affect you?

Well, it does not, unless you work for us.

That said, one of the driving forces behind IMF is to do things differently to most other companies out there. Apart from creating a great work atmosphere for IMF’s employees, I was determined that everybody should get enough vacation time in their yearly work life to actually enjoy some of their "real life" too.

Since 2007 my company Infinite Monkey Factory has instigated an enforced vacation rule, which requires everyone to take off the entire week of July 4th, generally the Monday through to the Friday of the first full week of July, and the entire week of Christmas, between the 24th of December and the 2nd of January. We actually close up at 5PM on the 23rd of December, and then we return to work on the 3rd of January, unlike most companies that return on the 2nd.

When I set up Infinite Monkey Factory, I wanted it to be different, to treat the employees working here with respect, and give them an experience of how a start-up company could be run without the high quality employees burning out and quitting in disgust after a few years. Do not just "think different" but "act different" too.

Part of the act different approach was to give everyone six weeks of discretionary personal time each year. Two of those weeks would be required vacation time; the remainder is made up of public holidays, holy days, and sick time.

The only part of our system that I consider brain-dead, and unfortunately, it had to happen this way under direction from our HR person, was that we could not roll over unused time and still get other vacation benefits for the employees. The law is designed to protect employees from companies that exploit them, but in this case, it hampers the rewards we can give to the employees, ce la vie. Any time that an employee has not used by the end of the year, IMF buys back, for accounting purposes, is considered an end of year bonus. It works out to be fair, but I do not think it is ideal.

Forcing people to take "vacation time" twice a year ensures that everyone gets at least two weeks of cooling off time completely away from the office, and is totally irrespective of whether they also take any of the other time off that they are due. Officially, we close the office, people are expected to stay away, and employees are neither requested nor required to work the week of closure. Which is wonderful in theory, but attempting to keep people out of the office when they are deep in to a project feels like hitting my head against the wall some days.

There are many studies that have proven again and again that time away from the desk can significantly improve overall short-term and long-term productivity and employee well-being. I am not in business to turn a quick profit, I am here for the long-term, and I want my company to thrive based on principles that I myself find congruent with my own philosophy and outlook. I have worked for too many people and too many companies whose sole aim is to become wealthy at the expense of others’ well-being. I created IMF with the goal of entertaining customers, I do not feel that the company can achieve that goal, nor do I personally feel comfortable in meeting that goal, if the entertainment is created through the pain of and with the exploitation of others.

There is one more neat twist about our personal time policy that is different to most other companies out there. At the beginning of the calendar year, on January 1st, the entire chunk of discretionary personal time, other than that time set aside for Federal holidays and the two blocks of enforced vacation time, is awarded to each employee that has been with us a full year.

Frequently there are events at the beginning of the New Year, conventions or conferences to attend, fresh snow on the slopes, cheap holidays in warmer climates due to the low season, that people want to go on but do not have enough accrued time in the first few months of the year to actually take.

Is this policy of giving an employee their discretionary personal time, all up front, open to abuse?

Could someone take a four-week vacation in January and then need more time off later in the year when they are feeling a little under the weather?

A day or two here because the kids are home from school with head colds?

Can the system be gamed?

Sure, it could be. In the same way that an employee could raid the company kitchen for soft drinks to stock up their refrigerator at home in anticipation of their July 4th BBQ.

It is within the nature of people to attempt to attempt to game a system, to get an edge, to create an advantage, and as video game developers we are always looking for the short cut, a significant part of a software developers job is spent optimising various systems. No matter how rigid and sturdy you make the foundation of rules upon which a system is based, someone, at some point in time, will attempt to find a hole.

Nobody has abused the policy yet, and anybody attempting to "game the system," a system which I consider to be more than fair — six weeks of discretionary personal time each year, hello?!? — will find that the "problem" is dealt with swiftly and mercilessly.

With the power to spend your discretionary, personal time however you choose or see fit, comes the responsibility to do it wisely. An unwise, irresponsible approach to your discretionary time budget can have a more adverse effect on your job, your career, your personal development and your life than just the immediate reward of playing hooky from work for a day.

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