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City of London Firm Offers ‘Unlimited Holiday’ to Battle Burnout

City of London Firm Offers ‘Unlimited Holiday’ to Battle Burnout

After a blockbuster year for capital markets and a pandemic to boot, FinnCap Group Plc will allow its employees to take as many vacations as they want in the hopes of preventing staff burnout. 

The London-based broker is changing its vacation policy to offer employees unlimited paid breaks from 2022, Chief Executive Officer Sam Smith said in a phone interview Thursday. The firm’s investment bankers, salespeople and other staff will be required to take at least four weeks a year and two or three days a quarter, according to Smith.

“There’s not a maximum, there’s a minimum you must take,” she said. “The rest is up to you.”

Smith -- whose firm has recruited more than 30 people so far this year to help with increased workloads -- said the policy includes other steps to ensure workers felt free to take as much holiday as possible. The company has set out a list of activities, from vet visits to plumber callouts, that wouldn’t count toward the four-week minimum.

The move is designed to help ease the strain on FinnCap’s 155 staff during an unprecedentedly busy time for capital markets. Such a perk is increasingly common at tech companies but finance firms -- steeped in a hard-charging culture of long hours -- have been slower to adapt.

“Burnout is not resolved by a quick two-week holiday,” Smith said. “It is resolved by properly changing the way you work.”

FinnCap offers advisory and finance services to institutional clients as well as wealthy investors. On Thursday the group reported its best-ever interim results for the six months to Sept. 30 after an “exceptionally active period for the M&A team” and strong demand in equity capital markets units. Revenue rose 55% to 31.7 million pounds ($43 million), with deal and advisory fees up three quarters.

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.