“This leads to A-performer burnout. B-performer luxuries. And feelings of unfairness across the board,” the millennial boss explained.
“So we’re flipping the script: no more confusion. Every Bolter now gets four weeks of paid vacation (yes, the traditional corporate standard), with the opportunity to accrue more with tenure. Not optional,” Breslow added. “We mandate everyone take all four weeks off.”
Now, the company is capping annual leave at around four weeks—but Bolt workers can accrue a maximum of 25 days leave with tenure.
“We believe a team executing at the pace and scale we do deserves real, protected time off, not vague promises,” a Bolt spokesperson echoed in a statement to Fortune. “When we saw in our own data that our A-players weren’t taking enough time away, we knew we had to fix it.”
“HR is the wrong energy, format, and approach,” he said. “People ops empowers managers, streamlines decision making, and keeps the company moving at lightning speed.”
“If we’re asking people to move fast, build hard, and operate at the highest level, we need to protect their recovery time with the same intensity,” Breslow said. “Execution requires clarity. That applies to PTO, too.”
At the same time, shifting to the policy has sometimes backfired. In 2014, Tribune Publishing—the company behind the Chicago Tribune and formerly the Los Angeles Times—attempted to transition from limited to unlimited PTO, but faced backlash from its employees.
