Question

1. What is your opinion on DTO? What motivation theory do you think it has been inspired by? Explain whether or not you would adopt it in your organization.

2. What is fundamental for the DTO policy to be effectively implemented in organizations? Do you think there might be some equity problems in the management of personnel?

3. Do you think that DTO can be applied in every industry or is it only applicable for tech companies? Explain the reasons for your answer.

4. Should this unlimited vacation policy be adopted in all countries or do you think it won't work well in certain countries? Explain your answer using examples.

Answer 1

What is your opinion on DTO? What motivation theory do you think it has been inspired by? Explain whether or not you would adopt it in your organization.

My opinion is that DTO is a policy of the future and will be nothing without proper regulations by the organization and discipline of the employees. I mean someone can take up a second job and take leave days in one job to do the other. This can detach the employees from their current jobs and the policy would de-motivate instead of motivating.

DTO has been inspired by the Herzberg Two Factor Theory that states that there exist two factors to motivation: Motivation and Hygiene factors to motivation. In this case, motivation factors are what encourages the employees to work harder at work and are part of the job itself while hygiene factors are not part of the job and only surround it. Their absence may demotivate the employees. According to the theory, poor hygiene factors are a cause of low employee job satisfaction.

I would not adapt DTO in my place of work. As a medium-sized business firm, we do not currently have multiple employees with similar expertise in their areas of specialization. Therefore, the unlimited vacation policy would affect the daily operations of the company. Forcing the company to recruit more personnel which would be very expensive for the company.

What is fundamental for the DTO policy to be effectively implemented in organizations? Do you think there might be some equity problems in the management of personnel?

First, the company should have a big workforce where certain areas of specialization can be handled by more than one employee. This way, even if one or two employees are on leave, the remaining ones can still handle the tasks freely. Secondly, the organization should have in place proper regulations into the nature of leave. In this I feel, the organization should have the capacity to cancel a leave if they feel it is being misused by the employee and further cancel all other future intended leaves.

Equity issues will arise. Not all employees are motivated to be at the workplace. In this case, some employees may want more leave days than others. The organization will lack grounds to regulate the number of days one can be on leave forcing some good employees of the company to work more and have lesser leave days.

Do you think that DTO can be applied in every industry or is it only applicable for tech companies? Explain the reasons for your answer.

DTO cannot be applied to all industries and maybe it only applies to the IT world. In the business world, it is not possible to operate when employees go on leave as they wish. This is because, employees have a tight weekly work schedule to complete, employee-client relationships to manage and countless impromptu meetings with the clients both existing and potential who sometimes instruct to only work with only specific employees. What happens when clients only need to work with the employee who is on leave? Do you keep on telling such clients that the employee is on leave?. No. The company would loose on its existing client and possibly the potential ones.

Should this unlimited vacation policy be adopted in all countries or do you think it won't work well in certain countries? Explain your answer using examples.

DTO should not be adopted in all countries and certainly, it is not even possible. The duties and responsibilities of employees in the different countries are deduced from the employment and labor laws adopted by a certain state. In this case, different countries have different labor laws. For example, Japanese labor laws are very different from American labor laws. It is not possible to have the same labor laws everywhere in the world hence not humanly possible to make all nations adapt to the unlimited vacation policy. However, some countries are suited to have the policy more than others. Respect for the installed labor and employment laws is not the same in all countries. There are places where employees get exploited by the employer and there is nothing they can do. Such is prevalent in low developed nations like African and Middle-East countries. A good example would be a nation like Afghanistan. On the other hand, in places like in the US and UK, employment laws are well adhered to. In this case, I feel like the Nations of Global North are more suited to the policy more than their counterpart.