64% of investors surveyed feel unlimited vacation time could help companies beat the S&P 500 — but only 1 in 5 say this trend could actually gain traction

• 2 in 3 surveyed investors feel companies with unlimited vacation could beat the S&P 500.
• Despite this, the four-day workweek emerged as the more likely trend to dominate.

About two in three investors believe that stocks of companies offering unlimited time off could outperform the S&P 500, according to Bloomberg.

Bloomberg's weekly Markets Live Pulse survey took place between August 7 and 11 and reached 1,061 respondents.

Of those surveyed, 65% of professional investors and 57% of retail investors believed unlimited vacation companies could outperform the S&P 500's performance.

However, only 18%, or less than 1 in 5, believe the trend of unlimited vacation time is likely to take off. And this benefit is still not widespread — only around 12% of respondents indicated that their company adopts this policy.

Instead, over half of those surveyed believe the four-day workweek could dominate as a workplace trend, followed by 20% who think that sabbatical policies would.

The survey echoes the ongoing debate over the benefits and drawbacks of unlimited time off.

Post-pandemic, employee appetite for unlimited time off skyrocketed. In 2022, Glassdoor reported a 75% increase in mentions of "unlimited" leave policies in employee reviews since the pandemic's onset.

However, that interest has not been matched by company policy.

While Netflix, Microsoft, and Hubspot are a few of the companies offering unlimited vacation days, a 2023 survey of 4,217 US firms by the Society for Human Resource Management found that only 8% of businesses surveyed offered paid unlimited or open vacation policies.

And the effects of this policy can also be somewhat limited. Employees in the US who are on unlimited time-off plans took an average of 12.09 days off each year, compared to the 11.36 days taken by those with limited plans, according to a study by human resources software company Namely published in July 2022.

Some firms found that employees were often too guilty to use their time off, resulting in even less time off taken than when leave was capped, Insider reported in January.

The shift towards "unlimited vacations" is also not entirely based on generosity, Wharton professor Peter Cappelli wrote in an op-ed for Fast Company on Thursday. Moving to this system allows firms to eliminate accrued vacation liabilities from their books, making them appear more valuable financially, per Cappelli.