Netflix vacation policy: Take all you want

LOS GATOS, Calif., March 22 (UPI) -- DVD rental firm Netflix Inc. does not care how much time off its employees take, as long as they get their work done, the U.S. company's chief executive says.

"The worst thing is for a manager to come in and tell me: 'Let's give Susie a huge raise because she's always in the office.' What do I care? I want managers to come to me and say: 'Let's give a really big raise to Sally because she's getting a lot done' -- not because she's chained to her desk," Reed Hastings says.

He calls vacation limits and face-time requirements "a relic of the industrial age."

Netflix's lack of time-off rules are part of a broad culture of employee autonomy Hastings instilled in the Los Gatos, Calif., company when he founded it a decade ago, The Mercury News of San Jose, Calif., reports.

Executives trust their 300-plus salaried employees to make their own decisions about virtually everything, Hastings says.

The policy does not apply to the much larger hourly workforce, the newspaper notes.

Netflix estimates most employees take off 25 to 30 days a year, but does not for sure because it does not record vacation time.