Lots of vacation and paid time off? Try these 25 top-ranked companies

Amben, Inc. employees can start with as much as five weeks of vacation their first year.

Credit: Contributed by Glassdoor

Credit: Contributed by Glassdoor

Amben, Inc. employees can start with as much as five weeks of vacation their first year.

The 25 highest-rated companies for vacation and paid time off are out not in Georgia but they are in the realm of possibility. Four of the top 5 as ranked by Glassdoor in October 2016 are in the United States, including the No. 1: Amgen Inc., based in Thousand Oaks, California.

Glassdoor ranked companies based on reviews from their own employees. Amgen, an industry biotech and pharmaceutical company, placed ahead of usual suspects like Netherlands-based Ikea (No. 3) and Mountain View, California's Google (No. 4). It draws its vacation-friendly rep from employee reports of starting with three weeks vacation plus two shutdowns over the Fourth of July and Christmas, according to Glassdoor.
New York City's Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the world's oldest and largest private cancer center, came in at No. 2. Employees there noted its up to 20 vacation days, plus float holiday days, sick days and personal days, according to Glassdoor.
Glassdoor, which reported that U.S. employees commonly take just half of their earned vacation time in 2014, also took into account whether employees reporting feeling comfortable actually taking all that time off. Sloan Kettering, for example, got high marks from employee comments including, "Nobody asks questions or makes you feel guilty for taking the time either which is a breath of fresh air."
Ikea was favored because its employees can accrue PTO and take vacation in one-hour increments. Employees there reported that they get three weeks vacation per year at start of employment, five weeks per year after five years of employment and seven weeks per year after 10 years of employment.
Fourth-place Google's employees report vacation and paid time off policies that include possibly starting with three weeks paid time off and up to three months of unpaid sabbatical.
Rounding out the top 5 is St. Louis-based Monsanto. Employees there reported "excellent vacation schedules and holiday packages," said the Glassdoor blog. In addition to being upgraded to 4 weeks PTO in the second full calendar year, workers report they can get an additional week off between Christmas and New Year.
For a look at the full list of 25, click here.

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