The common practice for an employee vacation policy is the employee either uses their vacation time or loses their vacation time. In many companies, this causes a rush at the end of the year for all or the majority of the employees to take their vacation days all at the same time. The use-or-lose-it way of thinking, however, might not be the only or the best strategy for offering your employees vacation time. Uncover at least three strategies that some employers are using for offering employees vacation that you might be able to use in your own business.

Trade for Cash

Since vacation time is paid time off for the employees, the first option is to pay employees for unused vacation time. At the end of the year, allow employees to “cash in” on any of their untaken vacation days. It is a wash to the business and its bottom line, but it can boost employee morale because employees don’t feel as if they have lost anything by not taking their vacation.

Buy, Sell and Trade

Establish a system where employees can buy, sell and trade their vacation time with other employees. While some employees never seem to use up their vacation time, other employees seem to need extra days for vacations (always), a honeymoon or maternity leave. Create a system where employees can help each other out.

Disregard Vacation Policies

It might not work for every company, but it does work for some businesses. Some business owners and entrepreneurs find that the best vacation policy is to not have a vacation policy at all. In other words, these owners don’t count the number of hours or days that their employees can take as vacation time, sick days or personal days. Instead, employees take time off as they need to and as they see fit.