How long is your perfect holiday? A week? A fortnight? A whole month of indulgence? For staff at one restaurant in Canton Zurich, the answer can be eight weeks or more, after owners gave workers an additional 2 months' holiday on top of their paid leave.
According to 20 Minuten, the Gasthof Löwen in Hausen am Albis will give all its staff a holiday between January 1 and March 1. The 200-year-old restaurant, by far one of the largest caterers in the area, will give its staff a so-called business holiday (Betriebsferien) of 2 months, on top of any paid leave agreed to in individual work contracts.
Joëlle Apter, the managing director and owner of the restaurant, confirmed that staff would still receive their full salary during the two-month hiatus. They confirmed that the restaurant will remain closed to customers until all their workers return.
The two months extra holiday means that employees could receive upwards of 14 weeks of paid leave a year. Needless to say, the policy has gone down well with staff, with Apter noting that many immediately booked flights from Zurich to Thailand when they heard the news.
However, instead of being a ploy to save energy, or a plan to cope with the massive skills shortage that is currently plaguing the catering industry, the owners' intentions turned out to be quite noble: "Working for us is exhausting and I want to give the team a break," Apter explained.
"The paid holidays are not an exercise to attract new staff, but rather another measure [to create] an appreciative corporate culture," Apter told 20 Minuten, concluding that they hoped more businesses would adopt the approach. This isn’t the first time the restaurant has pursued “worker-friendly” policies either: last summer, the Löwen gave all staff a season ticket so that they could swim at the pool in the nearby lake for free.