Richard Branson; upsetting the status quo

His name isn’t Henry, but he could have been a Plantagenet. A king who actually instituted rule of law in England. The reactions to Branson saying his staff can have unlimited leave has brought out multitude reactions. One, the attitude his staff won’t be functional – I assume he knows they function.

Or else he wouldn’t have done it. What will this mean for other staff? Umm, nobody tells you how important you are because then they’ll have to pay you more, and why would the bean counters tell that you can decide what you wanna do, when you need a break? What Mr Branson has done is slash the problem at its root.

Most employees do know when they’re being effective, or when they should gently retire to Worcestershire for a break,and plant carrots or whatever. It’s interesting the amount of flak Mr Branson has received, including from influential thinkers, for making such a break from normally accepted office routine.

They all think that the people he’s giving the choice to have no brains, will spend their time stressing about whether they’ve really finished their work or not, and go into HR hysterics about taking time off.

I expect it would totally psyche out HR professionals, who believe they are the ones who should tell people (even when HR has no clue what line jobs entail) when they should take time off. In the Indian context, dear reader, can you imagine telling your boss/owner/superior you just wanna let go instead of attending that important meeting on Sunday morning which is all about his/her insecurities? Mr Branson, you are such a clever devil.