!e CEO of Kronos on launching
an unlimited vacation policy
Ed“ard Birman
The article about to be discussed is from the Harvard Business Review and was
published in the November-December 2017 issue of the magazine. It is an interview of
Kronos’s CEO Aron Ain. Aron Ain is the CEO of Kronos since 2005 and has been working
in the company since 1979. Kronos is a company that originally manufactured time clocks.
Mark Ain founded it on October 31st 1977, in the United States. It currently employs
more than 5,000 people worldwide. Nowadays, the company’s revenue relies on software
and services. The company provides cloud applications for workforce management and
human capital management, as well as consulting, education, and support services to its
customers. In fact, one of Kronos clients is Pace University.
This article deals with Kronos’ new unlimited vacation policy. At the creation of the
company, employees were only able to have two weeks vacation per year. Aron Ain stated
that when he “joined Kronos as one of its first employees, the company gave new
employees two weeks of paid vacation. Every year you stayed at the company, you
earned an additional day, up to a certain level”. When he became VP of global sales and
services, he said that executives could take as many vacation as they deemed
appropriate. Top executives were required to work 24/7, so even when on vacation they
were still working. After 12 years of becoming the CEO he said that is has been 30 years
since he last tracked his vacation time.
The company was facing a major problem: it now longer managed to attract new
