The 369 vacation system at Growth Marketing Agency is a policy where employees are required to take a three-day vacation once every quarter.
You may have heard of the term “3, 6, 9.” It refers to the feeling employees often have at the 3-month, 6-month, and 9-month marks of wanting to quit their jobs.
In addition to providing the 369 vacation, Growth Marketing Agency also adheres to the Labor Standards Act, granting annual leave based on the employee’s years of service. As long as it doesn’t interfere with work, employees can take their annual leave whenever they want.
However, according to the Labor Standards Act, employees who have been with the company for less than a year are not entitled to annual leave by default, and they can only use one day of leave for every full month worked.
At Growth Marketing Agency, this law is only applied to employees in their first year of service, meaning that employees hired this year can start using their annual leave from the following year.
Of course, during the first year, employees are still granted one day of annual leave for each full month worked. For example, an employee who joined in May can use 7 days of annual leave by the end of the year, while an employee who joined in September can use 3 days.
Growth Marketing Agency’s Re-fresh 369 Vacation
In addition to annual leave, Growth Marketing Agency offers a Re-fresh 369 vacation.
As mentioned earlier, the “3, 6, 9” refers to the urge to quit at the 3-month, 6-month, and 9-month marks. The Re-fresh vacation system at Growth Marketing Agency is designed to combat this by requiring employees to take a three-day vacation once every quarter—March, June, September, and December—whether they want to or not. This mandatory break is scheduled just when employees might be feeling most worn out from continuous work, so there’s no need to feel guilty about taking time off.
How Does the 369 Vacation System Work in Practice?
The Re-fresh vacation allows employees to take three days off every quarter. Combined with annual leave, national holidays, and other public holidays, the actual working days in a year are significantly reduced. To balance this, one day of annual leave is deducted for every three days of Re-fresh vacation taken. Is this difficult to calculate? Let’s make it simple. A second-year employee can take 12 days off in total using the Re-fresh vacation (3 days per quarter). Out of their 15 days of annual leave, 4 days are deducted to cover the Re-fresh vacation, leaving them with 11 days of annual leave. Therefore, they end up with a total of 12 + (15-4) = 23 days off.
Re-fresh vacations are scheduled in advance every November 30th for the following year. Employees coordinate with each other to ensure that their chosen vacation periods do not disrupt the workflow. Not sure if a particular day next year will be a holiday? At Growth Marketing Agency, if it’s marked as a red day on the Naver calendar, it’s a day off. No need to worry about legal holidays, substitute holidays, or temporary holidays—if it’s red on the calendar, it’s a holiday.
What If You Plan to Travel Abroad During Your 369 Vacation?
You can plan your Re-fresh vacation at the end of November and combine it with weekends and annual leave for a longer break. For instance, you could take off from Saturday (weekend) to Sunday (weekend), followed by Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (Re-fresh vacation), and Thursday and Friday (annual leave), giving you 8 nights and 9 days for an overseas trip.
As long as it doesn’t interfere with your work, you can combine your Re-fresh vacation with weekends, public holidays, and annual leave to enjoy a 19-day vacation.
Because employees can freely choose their vacation periods, there is no separate summer vacation period. If you find that summer vacations in July and August are too expensive, you can take your 3rd quarter Re-fresh vacation in September. Conversely, if you prefer a summer vacation, you can take time off during the peak season in July or early August. If you’re into skiing or snowboarding, you can save up your annual leave and take it during the ski season while only using your Re-fresh vacation days.
The 369 Vacation Isn’t Just for Overseas Travel—It’s Also for Simple Rest
However, it is forbidden to come to work instead of taking your Re-fresh 369 vacation!
Marketing work involves countless variables and uncertainties that can overload the brain. We believe that taking time off to recharge is crucial for maintaining work efficiency. Continuous work without breaks can actually lead to problems.
If you really want to do something productive during your vacation, why not go to the library and read a book you’ve been meaning to read or study a foreign language you’ve been wanting to learn?
Michelle Bonam, Vice President of Organizational Effectiveness at Ceridian, said, “To maintain overall health, you need time to recharge, time to disconnect, and you can only truly achieve this if you disconnect.”
Companies start to recognize the importance of ‘out of office’ time to reduce employee burnout.
We understand the desire to work hard. But if one person skips their Re-fresh 369 vacation, others might feel pressured to work even when they are supposed to be on vacation. So even if you want to work, please take your vacation and enjoy it, so others can feel comfortable doing the same. 🙂
Preparing for Your Re-fresh 369 Vacation
Thorough Handover
To avoid any gaps in work while you’re on vacation, it’s essential to have a thorough handover process! If the handover isn’t smooth enough, you might end up having to deal with work-related calls during your Re-fresh period.
There could also be issues if team members who need to hand over work to each other end up taking vacations at the same time. Therefore, new employees are given priority when selecting their vacation schedules.
The Evolution of the 369 Vacation
Until 2020, the previous Re-fresh system allowed all employees to take a week off (Monday to Friday) during certain periods: Lunar New Year, the company’s founding anniversary (May 18th), Chuseok, and Christmas. During these periods, managers above the team leader level would take turns being on duty, while they would take their Re-fresh vacations at a separate time.
However, during the operation of this system, there were issues with managers being overloaded with work during the Re-fresh period. Therefore, starting in 2021, the system was changed to the current format, where employees take a 3-day Re-fresh vacation once per quarter.
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