Employee benefits at Basecamp

In the United States of "why aren't you working right now?" it's certainly an unusual benefit. I also work for a company that provides a sabbatical after X years. They also pay for you to travel during it if you wish. But I don't know how many people make it to it/take it.

It's on top of their basic vacation (which, at 3 weeks, isn't stellar, but is better than many US jobs), and the implication is that you take it all at once -- so not to be sniffed at, I'd say. It's not really equivalent to traditional academic sabbaticals, but it is potentially enough to study something new or get a little side-project off the ground.

Edit: the 4-day-summer-weeks thing should typically work out as an extra 17 days off per year, which makes the total -- before counting sabbatical -- higher than the great majority of UK employers, albeit (maybe) with less flexibility.

I used to work for a company which did this, though it was 4 weeks each 4 years. It was actually mandatory: to check that that the company could function without you.

> everyone

I lived in Italy for most of the past 15 years, and no not everyone gets that kind of vacation time. A lot of people don't:

* The unemployed. There are a lot of them - with youth rates approaching 40% at one point.

* People who do not have a "Permanent Job", which includes a lot of younger (under 40 is 'young' in Italy) people.

* Even people with permanent jobs are starting to take smaller vacations - 2 weeks, for instance - because the model of "hey, let's shut down the entire country during August" isn't really sustainable when you're competing against people who stay open and stay productive by taking turns taking time off.

They offer vacations too (3 weeks per year - towards the end of the list). I think Sabbatical is on top of that. I think their benefits are quite good even compared to the typical benefits of nice-to-work European countries (i.e. Germany).

It's madness. I take a month off every year. I only get paid for two weeks vacation, but I take a month because, come on. Two free weeks a year? Who the hell ever thought that was reasonable?

I work in the US and get 4 weeks of vacation a year, but I wouldn't take it all at once in the summer. My kids are in school and schools close for 3 weeks during the normal school year - one between Christmas and New Years, one in February and one in April. The Christmas to New Years week coincides with 4 of the days my office is closed (Christmas eve and day, New years eve and day), so I can take 2 to 3 days off and be home for that stretch. That leaves about a week and a half in the summer for a summer vacation. If you're taking 4 weeks in the summer, do you not take time at all the rest of the year? Do schools in your country not have vacations?

Wow, I'd never considered that side of things.

The company I work at recently bumped to 12/12 which is incredible.

Agreed. These should ideally be equal.

This is a little unfair.

I agree with you in spirit, but this policy is pretty damn close: note that "primary caregiver" leave is also a full 16 weeks. I've seen companies move away from "maternity" vs. "paternity" terms and just talk about "primary caregiver" and "secondary caregiver". Which not only gets away from the gender-specific career costs, but also covers non-birth parents (e.g., adoption, surrogates).[1]

In other words, the father[2] is more than able to step into the primary caregiver role and allow the mother to return to work and minimize career impact.

Now, there's a separate argument that both parents should get equal time off. I agree with that view as well, but it's a different philosophical argument.

Finally, I would be interested to know if there's a tenure requirement for parental leave at Basecamp. It's often 12 months "vesting", which is a bummer for those with children on the horizon. I recently switched jobs and had a kid: I gave up an 8-week parental leave benefit at my old company for no benefit whatsoever at the new one. I made the decision that the cost (losing the benefit) was worth the opportunity, but I could see others deferring a job change in that instance. This is a rather insidious form of Family Responsibilities Discrimination that adds a career cost to both men and women (and moreso for women).

[1] Traditional maternity policies are often focused on the medical aspects of childbirth rather than newborn bonding and care.

[2] Replace with other terms as appropriate.

It's a pity not more employers do this. I've always been a big proponent of 4-on-3-off work schedules. Traditional work 5 out of 7 was arbitrarily chosen. Regular 3-day weekends really rejuvenates you. If 40 hours of work a week is mandatory, spreading the 8 hours of the fifth day into the 4 days isn't so bad.

My employer closes 1 pm every other Friday in the summer. It's definitely something I appreciate.

When employers talk vacation it's based off 8-hour business days. So 3 weeks is 15 days vacation, or 120 hours if your work days aren't 8-hour based like shift work or factories where you may work 4 10hour days per week.

I posted it without having any relationship with them. I haven't even used basecamp ever.

As far as attracting hires, they almost never hire. Which actually makes me sad. I'd love to work there.

As someone who works for an employer who has only very recently begun embracing proper compensation and benefit packages, articles like this are awesome as they draw attention to how far most US based employers still have to come.

I think it's invaluable to have comprehensive break-downs like this published online for companies with some amount of name recognition-- proof that you can take care of your employees and remain profitable.

I'm sure working at Uber is way better.

I imagine Basecamp would consider their employees to be the future of their business, so these benefits are reinvestments.

When you don't take VC money, you're free to run your company as you like. Basecamp sounds like an awesome place to work for both Jason and his employees.

A lot of companies keep that money in an offshore bank account and don't invest it. A "business" doesn't mean that employees can't participate in the success of the business.

They are reinvesting it, just not in a traditional way. Reading a benefits package such as this gets people like me to consider working at Basecamp, so they end up getting good employees who want to work hard as they know the company is taking care of them.