Lightspeed Commerce is offering its employees unlimited paid leave
What if you had unlimited paid leave? Montreal-based company Lightspeed Commerce is offering its employees exactly that through its People Experience (PX) policy.
“Regardless of the job you do with Lightspeed, you have KPIs, you have OKRs, you have objectives,” said chief executive Jean-Paul Chauvet. “So as long as you deliver on what you’re doing, I don’t care how much time off you take.”
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Lightspeed, which offers point-of-sale services for hospitality and retail companies, is trying to reinvent the pre-pandemic workspace, and its sliding share price, down 71 per cent this year, is doing little to slow down its ambitions.
Chauvet is confident the $1 billion sitting in the company’s cash account should carry it through the impending recession.
“We are extremely well-funded,” he said. “We’ll never get through that billion dollars.”
In the meantime, Lightspeed is using the excess capital to develop its people and fill 300 openings.
Hardline managers might raise their eyebrows at Lightspeed’s people-centred approach. But Elena Antonacopoulou, a professor of organizational behaviour and strategy at the Ivey Business School in London, Ont., said we shouldn’t be surprised by such an approach. Instead, we should celebrate it.
“If there was ever a golden moment for any organization to reveal what it stands for when it comes to its human resource management strategy, this is the golden moment,” she said.
Businesses now have the “opportunity to rethink, ‘What is work? What is the meaning of working? And what purpose does the workforce fulfill in an ever-changing workplace?’” she added.
Unlimited paid time off indicates that Lightspeed trusts its employees, and wants to liberate staff to “enjoy themselves to enjoy their time as they so choose,” Antonacopoulou said.
There will, of course, always be some employees who abuse the privilege, but she noted that the greater concern is the company’s objective-based system. Workplace projects will need to be extremely well-laid out beforehand, but still agile enough to adapt to the changing needs of the marketplace, she said.
Lightspeed offers employees the choice to work from home or in the office, as much or as little as they choose. If a company wants staff to choose to come into the office, it’s on the company to make sure staff want to be there, Chauvet said.
“If you want people to want to come back — and we don’t want to force anyone to come back — you need to make it exceptional,” he said.
To this end, the company has renovated its Montreal headquarters with Swedish design in mind.
“I worked in Stockholm 12 years ago,” Chauvet said. A Swedish office is more “homey,” he added. “Everything is centred around the kitchen. It’s almost like a flat.”
Arguably, Lightspeed’s new Montreal headquarters is better than an apartment, since staff are treated to free meals onsite.
The one thing Chauvet asked, though, is that each department implement “pillar days.” Employees are encouraged to come in on those days to allow for more departmental collaboration. This in-person element, he said, is crucial.
Antonacopoulou said the most important thing is not whether employees choose to work in person or online, but that they have the choice. Prior to the pandemic, many employees had no choice but to work from the office, and during the pandemic, they had no choice but to work at home, subjected to control and surveillance techniques that eroded trust.
“All these new ways of working remotely are a reflection of what employees were calling for before the pandemic, but it was always said that it couldn’t be done,” she said.
As the great resignation has demonstrated, she said, employees aren’t afraid to walk away from companies that don’t take their needs seriously.
If, despite all the flexibility, Lightspeed’s employees still find themselves itching for something more, they can work internationally for up to two months per calendar year.
Antonacopoulou said such a policy prioritizes creativity above all. The fifth industrial revolution, she said, which we are witnessing right now, is defined not by ‘industry,’ but by ‘industriousness.’ Employees who travel, she said, will broaden their horizons and return to the company with new ideas. This sort of policy, then, will promote “human flourishing,” she said.
To be sure, flexible policies such as Lightspeed’s are not without risk, Antonacopoulou said. Some will abuse the privilege. Some simply won’t show up. But she said for those who do, “it is an invitation … to bring the best version of themselves.”
Chauvet hopes employees will be enticed to collaborate with their peers in the new office space.
“Maybe I’m old school, but I don’t know how (fully remote work) is going to play out long term,” he said. “I don’t know how you can build a strong culture that way. At some point you need to meet your colleagues. You need to meet the company you work for.”
• Email: mcoulton@postmedia.com | Twitter: marisacoulton
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