We’re no strangers to challenging the status quo, and creating things that work well, regardless of where in the world people live. Today, we’re going one step further by applying that mentality to our Wisers, and their time off.

Over the last few years, flexibility at work has proven more and more important. People want real benefits to enhance their work-life balance — and we know that doing this should create a genuinely better, fairer place to work.

So, what are the new minimum time off policies?

Parental leave — Family comes first and we don’t want people to miss out on any of the special, important moments.

So we offer:

• 18 fully paid weeks of parental leave for birth or adoption, if a person has been at Wise for 1+ year at the due date or adoption date. This applies regardless of gender, or their partner’s parental leave policies.
• 10 days leave on full pay for any Wisers affected by pregnancy loss, ​​including those who are partners or surrogate mothers.
• Additional leave — we know burnout is a huge problem, made even harder with the pandemic. It’s important that all of our people have the option to conveniently take time off when they feel they need it, no matter the reason.

All of our Wisers are entitled to:

• 33 days annual leave (holiday, paid time off) per year, including local public holidays.
• 3 ‘me days’ per year to help them manage life — this can be used for life admin, when the world becomes a little too much, or for errands like vet visits.
• 6 weeks paid sabbatical, available to everyone after working at Wise for 4 years.
• 15 days sick leave at full pay, per year.
• 5 compassionate leave days per year — for when the worst happens, whether it’s emergencies or bereavement, with flexibility to increase where needed.
• These minimums will apply in each of our locations, even if it’s more than local market practice.

And in regions where our current offer is more than the new minimums, this will continue to be the case. For example in Estonia paid maternity leave will stay at the official 1.5 years — with our added benefit of the first 18 weeks being fully paid. Maternity leave in the UK will remain at 39 weeks, with 26 of them at full pay.

At Wise, we believe everything is better without borders. We’re proud to be able to break down the differences in leave, and create a better global standard for our teams.

We simply can’t achieve the things we do without our people, and we hope these changes will give Wisers the time and space they need to live and work more freely.