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One of a start-up's greatest luxuries is the freedom employees have to regulate the time they take off for
sick days, personal days, and vacations. With a small, dedicated staff, peer pressure alone tends to limit the danger that the freedom will be
abused. But what do you do when the company grows and abuses begin to crop up? Most companies feel compelled to start policing employees.
But Gary Mokotoff, president of Data universal Corp,. in Teaneck, N.J., has come up with an alternative, which he calls flex-leave.
Under Mokotoff's system, each of the company's 35 employees is allowed six weeks off with pay during a year.
That includes two weeks for vacation, 10 holidays, and 10 days for other reasons - sickness, death in the family, personal needs, whatever.
"Every day you don't come in is counted toward the six weeks," says Mokotoff. If employees use less than the entire six weeks, they get paid for
the balance in the form of a good attendance bonus. In practice, the average employee takes off a little more than five weeks per year, and the
bonuses add up to about 80% of a week's payroll.
The policy has eliminated abuses of sick time, says Mokotoff, and ended controversy over holidays such as Good
Friday and Rosh Hashanah.
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