wworks at Swedish streaming platform Spotify doesn’t have to look at the official holiday calendar to plan long weekends. Since 2017, Spotify employees have been able to decide individually when they want to take a day off beyond the normal holidays. Even the American snowboard manufacturer Burton no longer specifies rest days – the weather decides there. If it has snowed heavily, the employees are given “snow free” and can let off steam on the slopes. Burton also donates lift passes for this.
It’s probably precisely these freedoms that employees brag about to friends and acquaintances, just as their parents might with their new company car, business class trip to New York, or move to the corner office. Because what employees see as a status symbol has changed significantly, psychologists say. It’s true that people still define themselves primarily through their work. That’s why status symbols are important to show if you’ve arrived at something in your work. But companies like Spotify and Burton show that younger professionals between the ages of 18 and 35 are less interested in material things.
