# Unlimited holiday: does it actually work?

- **Episode:** [125](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/125.md) (2024-09-05)
- **Type:** interview
- **Tags:** unlimited-holiday, leave-policy, employee-benefits
- **Time:** 27:55–34:11 (start 1675s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/125?t=1675](https://truthliesandwork.com/125?t=1675)

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[27:55] Leanne Elliott: I have to ask you about the unlimited holiday allowance? Because that is something, as a, you know, as a perk that rolls around from time to time. How do you make it work?
[28:05] Ed Williams: Yeah, it's a funny one actually, because it's something that we're reviewing at the moment. In real honesty, it works for some people who take it at face value and say, great, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take as much holidays as I want, fantastic, perfect. And they're probably the people that are best at managing their own time and are also you know, tend to be the people that are most on top of their workload and doing a great job as well, they are probably really benefiting from it. There's then maybe some junior people that have only recently joined the team who look at that and they're a little bit scared to push the boundaries too much and don't want to take too much holiday and actually then end up not taking as much as they would on a regular sort of holiday policy. So sort of penalized, if you like, by it. And there's people that probably sit somewhere in the middle. And I think that We're trying to fine-tune that and get it to a better place. But from our side, again, it's coming back to that trust and autonomy point. If we can let people manage their own time, um, if the job's being done, then you can take the holiday that you need. But it's not perfect, and we, we probably are gonna need to make some changes on that. But it's, uh, very much kind of a live one right now. I think, I think the intention at least behind it is good, and I'm constantly reminding people that unlimited means unlimited. You know, you manage it how you want to manage it, but it's, um, it's not always as perfect as I'd like it to be, but we're working on it
[29:25] Leanne Elliott: Tell me about B Corp. You said proud B Corp. Was that an intention when you founded the company?
[29:31] Ed Williams: No, I mean, when we founded the business, I didn't even know what a B Corp was, to be honest. Um, I don't think a lot of people in the UK did, um, 10 years ago, but it's something that we started to look into. We, um, found through a number of different sort of friendly brands, uh, that it was becoming a bigger part of the UK sort of consumer goods scene and loved the sound of it. I think for us, we always felt like we were doing a good job, but B Corp was a certificate to kind of rubber stamp that and prove to ourselves first and foremost that we actually were, and then to give the consumers that sort of signal on pack or at the point of purchase, that we don't just say we're doing the right stuff. We've got these guys to sort of back it up and hold us to account. So for me, it's really, really important. And it's not— the most important part about B Corp, in my view, is that it's this never-ending road of improvement. You don't sort of earn the certification and then say, okay, feet up, job done, we've got that now. You're then constantly reevaluating to make sure that you're maintaining that score and hopefully improving it. So it's a really interesting one, and I'd really recommend anybody in any type of business, because it's not just consumer goods, it really is for everything, whether you're thinking about becoming a B Corp or thinking about starting a business or whatever stage you're at, I think it's a worthwhile exercise to work through the B Corp assessment to just get an understanding of where you are. And actually, it's kind of like a roadmap for building the perfect business. I think for us, the hardest part was that we were already 7 or 8 years in. So we'd already set up quite a lot of things that then needed to be sort of rejigged or reorganized in order to make them sort of work for the B Corp standard. And with that then comes a lot of information trawling and going back through some sort of historic documents. Documents and, um, various sort of legal bits to make sure that you could marry up those to the B Corp certification. And, and that's where I say if you were starting a business from scratch tomorrow, then the B Corp assessment would be a really great place to start because you could then build towards that and not have to sort of undo things unnecessarily later. Um, so it takes a long time. It took us probably 2 and a half years to certify. And I think that's also part of the challenge is staying focused and disciplined to get it over the line. But now that we have that in place, it really is sort of core to day-to-day decision-making at Candy Kittens. We reference it all the time and come back to the principles to make sure that we're really living up to it. More often, actually, when we're working through recruitment, we're seeing people that want to come and interview with us because we're a B Corp. They've read about it, they understand it, they'd like to work at a B Corp. So as an employee, it might mean that we, you know, you have enhanced benefits, enhanced rights as workers within a B Corp. You know that you're going to be treated in a fair and responsible way, which I think is kind of quite a nice feeling of safety and security. I think as a consumer, there are different interpretations, and obviously it depends on what product or kind of sector you're buying in. I think with consumer goods generally, you know that that business at the very least is trying to do their best they can in that space. So it might be within ingredients, it might be within packaging, it might be within the supply chain or the way that the product is brought into the UK. It's probably in reality a combination of all of those things. And I think you just know that you're buying from a business that's on a path to a better place. And I think we all would hope to be sort of striving for that, whether it's around sustainability or ethics, um, whatever the topic might be. It's that kind of thumbs up that, yeah, these guys, these are the good guys. The— for the Sweet Factory, the new office space, we were really proud to partner with a number of different great B Corps. Um, I've got some nice pink shelving behind me that was painted by, uh, the guys at Lick. Um, so Lick Paint are one of the sort of great examples of B Corps, and I think there's a number of B Corps of emerging now in the sort of home and interior design space. And again, you know, take Lick Paint as an example. The paints are completely natural, non-toxic. They were actually telling us when they came over to see the office that you could have a spoonful of their paint and eat that and nothing bad would happen to you. I didn't do that myself, but nice to know, I suppose. But, you know, again, we know then that we're surrounded by good quality, non-toxic chemicals and all that sort stuff. So it's— there's different reasons to go B Corp in different areas, but it generally does, like I say, mean that you're dealing with the good guys