
A list of companies with the “best” work-life balance usually comes out biased. Best is subjective, after all. I didn’t want to add another subjective list to the internet.
Here’s how I went about it instead. There are specific employee benefits that show a company’s dedication to work-life balance.
Companies that offer these employee benefits tangibly commit to work-life balance (and they made our list):
- Four-day work week: These companies have removed a work day completely (and usually reduce weekly hours to 32) to show their commitment to work-life balance.
- Remote: These companies have removed the office and the commute which returns time and flexibility back to the employee.
- Asynchronous: Colleagues work on their own schedule (not necessarily at the same time), allowing them to personally manage their work-life balance.
- Unlimited PTO: Employees can request off as many vacation days as they choose without a cap, showing the company’s commitment to balance.
- Paid sabbaticals: Employees can take an extended break from work (like a month), retain their salary, and not use vacation days.
Each benefit category has 20 notable companies (100 total) that offer that specific benefit. Some companies offer multiple of these benefits – those are the 14 companies with the best work-life balance.
Use the links below to jump to the section that interests you the most:
- 14 companies with the best work-life balance
- 20 companies that offer a four-day work week
- 20 companies that offer remote work
- 20 companies that work asynchronously
- 20 companies that offer unlimited PTO
- 20 companies that offer paid sabbaticals
- Submit a company to be reviewed
The 14 Companies With The Best Work-Life Balance
Of the 100 companies listed below, these are the 14 organizations that offer two or more work-life balance benefits. Objectively speaking, these are the companies with the best work-life balance.
Rank | Company | Work-Life Benefits | Jobs |
1 | Buffer | ⏰ 4-Day Work Week | |
2 | Hubspot | 🌎 Remote | |
3 | Microsoft | ⏰ 4-Day Work Week* | |
4 | VMware | 🌎 Remote | |
5 | Basecamp | ⏰ 4-Day Work Week | |
6 | Shopify | ⏰ 4-Day Work Week | |
7 | Gitlab | ✉️ Asynchronous | |
8 | Instacart | 🌎 Remote | |
9 | 🌎 Remote | ||
10 | 🌎 Remote | ||
11 | Adobe | 🌎 Remote | |
12 | Intel | 🌎 Remote | |
13 | REI | 🌎 Remote | |
14 | Zillow | 🌎 Remote |
20 Four-Day Work Week Companies With The Best Work-Life Balance
These 20 well-known companies offer a four-day work week. This is the main tool by which the company commits to a great work-life balance for its employees.
Company | Policy | Jobs | Story & Date |
Basecamp | Seasonal |
"As I write this it’s the first week of May, and there’s an energetic buzz in the air — because it means that Summer Hours are about to start here at Basecamp. During summer, we work 4-day work weeks, aka 'summer hours'. Summer hours are in effect from May 1 through August 31 each year." | |
Welcome to the Jungle | Permanent | June 1, 2019 | |
Microsoft Japan | Trial |
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Buffer | Permanent |
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Toshiba | Trial |
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Shopify | Seasonal |
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Mizuho Financial Group | Permanent Optional |
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Piktochart | Permanent |
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Unilever New Zealand | Trial 32 Hours |
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Awin | Permanent |
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Kickstarter | Unknown | United States: | |
Galt Pharmaceuticals | Permanent |
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Bolt | Permanent |
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Wonderlic | Permanent |
"After reviewing the results of a successful 12-week summer trial, Wonderlic is fully instating a 32-hour, four-day work week, effective immediately." | |
Atom Bank | Permanent |
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thredUP | Permanent |
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Panasonic | Permanent |
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D'Youville College | Trial 32 Hours |
D’Youville College in Buffalo, N.Y., turned heads last week when it announced that staff and administrators would shift to a four-day, 32-hour workweek—down from the five-day, 37.5-hour week they previously worked—without any reduction to their pay or benefits. The private college is launching the four-day workweek on a trial basis, with plans to assess how it’s working, and whether there have been any changes in student satisfaction, after six months." | |
Canon (UK) | Trial | January 16, 2022 | |
KPMG | Seasonal | February 10, 2022 |
20 Remote Companies With The Best Work-Life Balance
These 20 well-known companies offer remote work. This is the main tool by which the company commits to a great work-life balance for its employees.
Company | Policy | Jobs | Story |
Nationwide | Remote First | May 11, 2020 | |
Partial |
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Square | Optional | "Moving forward, Squares will be able to work from home permanently, even once offices begin to reopen. Over the past several weeks, we've learned a lot about what it takes for people to effectively perform roles outside of an office, and we will continue to learn as we go," the spokesperson told The Verge. | |
Facebook (Meta) | Partial | "When you limit hiring to people who live in a small number of big cities, or who are willing to move there, that cuts out a lot of people who live in different communities, have different backgrounds, have different perspectives," Zuckerberg said on a livestream posted to his Facebook page. | |
Shopify | Remote First | "As of today, Shopify is a digital by default company. We will keep our offices closed until 2021 so that we can rework them for this new reality. And after that, most will permanently work remotely. Office centricity is over." (Tobi Lutke, CEO, tweeted.) | |
Upwork | Remote First | "Upwork knows firsthand the incredible outcomes that distributed teams can deliver. Building on our 20 years of experience as a remote work company, we are now permanently embracing a 'remote-first' model. (Hayden Brown, CEO, tweeted.) | |
VMware | Remote First |
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Zillow | Optional | "Effective immediately, we will offer about 90% of our employees the flexibility to work from home as an ongoing option, at least part-time, allowing them the ability to work where they are most productive, whether that is in the office, their home, or a combination of both," said Dan Spaulding, Zillow's Chief People Officer in a blog post. | |
Basecamp | Fully Remote | "Lease is up. Cleaning out our office." (Jason Fried, Founder & CEO, tweeted.)
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REI | Partial | “I am confident that the sale of the Spring District campus would have a positive impact on REI’s future—and yours,” REI President and CEO Eric Artz told employees in a video call. “This year has shown us our home is not a building. Our home is wherever we find ourselves doing our best work, pursuing our outdoor passions, serving our communities. Serving each other. | |
Hubspot | Optional | "In 2021, HubSpot will drop the 'ish' in 'remote-ish.' We’re going to shift to a hybrid remote-office model where career growth is equitable for everyone, whether you do your best work in an office or in a home office. It’s the right thing to do for our employees and candidates, and for growing a company we’re proud of long-term," Katie Burke, Chief People Officer, wrote in a blog post. | |
Okta | Remote First | Brian Fung of CNN Business wrote, "Okta's internal surveys showed strong demand for more work-from-anywhere flexibility. Roughly eight in 10 employees said they would feel as or more productive working remotely than in the office, according to data the company collected in 2019. Just 17% said they would prefer to work five days a week inside an office." | |
Remote First | From SFGATE's article, "Pinterest pays $89.5 million to terminate San Francisco office lease" | ||
Indeed | Partial/ Optional | "While remote work is not ideal for everyone, what we’ve learned is that our employees can be equally productive working at home, and that flexible work options give us a better quality of life," Indeed’s statement said. | |
Dropbox | Remote First | "Starting today, Dropbox is becoming a Virtual First company. Remote work (outside an office) will be the primary experience for all employees and the day-to-day default for individual work," the Dropbox team shared in a blog post. | |
LogMeIn | Remote First | "Since our founding in 2003, we have built the tools and technology needed to empower a remote workforce. Now LogMeIn is in a position to lead from the front, be an example and live our mission as the work from anywhere company in front of our customers and [4,000] employees. It is because of this that we have made the decision to transition our business to a permanent remote-centric company," President & CEO, William Wagner, wrote in a LinkedIn post. | |
Salesforce | Optional | "The cloud software company, which has over 9,000 San Francisco workers, said most staff will be in the office for one to three days per week. Workers who don’t need to be in an office can be fully remote, while a minority of workers will be at desks four or five days a week." | |
Instacart | Remote First | "Instacart is becoming the latest Bay Area office to embrace remote work as a permanent fixture of the 'new normal' post-pandemic, announcing Thursday it will allow more than 70% of full-time employees to work from home on an ongoing basis." | |
Remote First/ | "LinkedIn will allow employees to opt for full-time remote work or a hybrid option as offices gradually reopen, Chief People Officer Teuila Hanson told Reuters.
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Airbnb | Remote First | April 28, 2022 |
20 Async Companies With The Best Work-Life Balance
These 20 well-known companies have declared they work asynchronously. This is the main tool by which the company commits to a great work-life balance for its employees.
Company | Policy | Jobs | Story |
Almanac | Async-First | "Our society's way of working is broken. Constant meetings, outmoded communication workflows, and dysfunctional processes have led to distraction, exhaustion, and burnout." | |
Gumroad | Async-First | "Going fully remote was nice, but the real benefit was in going fully asynchronous." | |
Buffer | Async-First | "There are many things we learned throughout our journey with asynchronous communication about what works well and what doesn’t, including plenty of additional benefits beyond timezone flexibility that we had never predicted." | |
Trello | Async-First | "Trello is a remote-first company, and the content team I work with uses the tool to assign blog posts and manage the workflow of freelance writers like me. We don’t have (or need) any meetings, rarely exchange emails, and as long as I turn in my articles on time, it doesn’t matter where or when I do my work." | |
Toggl Hire | Async-First | Juste Semetaite of Toggl Hire "As a fully remote company, we champion a results-driven approach to work.
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Doist | Async-First | "While I think remote work is the future, I believe that asynchronous communication is an even more important factor in team productivity, whether your team is remote or not. Not only does async produce the best work results, but it also lets people do more meaningful work and live freer, more fulfilled lives." | |
Vibe | Async-First | "As a remote team at Vibe, we’ve done our share of both sync and async communications.
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Lyne.ai | Async-First | "At Lyne, we're happy to announce that our team has decided to adopt the async-first method of working. We believe that this will offer us many benefits, including better collaboration and more focus. For us, working async offers a new way to work that has been designed with the needs of today's knowledge workers in mind. | |
Gitlab | Async-First | From the Gitlab handbook, "Take initiative to operate asynchronously whenever possible. This shows care and consideration for those who may not be in the same time zone, are traveling outside of their usual time zone, or are structuring their day around pressing commitments at home or in their community." | |
Firstbase | Async-First | "Companies that replicate the office environment remotely will fail. The instantaneous gratification of adult kids club distraction factory offices make people feel busy without allowing them to be productive.
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Remote | Async-First | "Async work should be used more often than sync work, it provides better resource management, reduces waste and therefore optimizes productivity." | |
Blind | Async-First | "When async-first professionals can focus on delivering impact without the distractions of meetings or pressures to respond instantly or show you are working, you see the benefits of being asynchronous." | |
Levels | Async-First | "Levels is not just asynchronous by default, it "fights" meetings, Slack, and excessive emailing. Though not entirely outlawed, "synchronous" communication is treated warily and often assumed to be counter-productive." | |
Float | Async-First | "Asynchronous communication, minimal viable process, and documentation are our default. Our goal is to deliver new features to our customers that offer a best-in-class product without the bloat." | |
Async-First |
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Figma | Async-First | "Figma can credit much of its fast-growing user base $10B valuation to their uncommon ability to build delight, purpose, and excitement with software. What’s even more impressive is the fact that they’re building a lot of their product async." | |
15five | Async-First | "I believe this is because communication from leadership appears more formal in a remote asynchronous environment. Here’s what we’re trying at 15Five to make our leaders more available to our people." Ray Charles of HouseHoldAir for the tip. | |
ZenMaid | Async-First | "Personally I don’t enjoy meetings all that much but I do think they are useful. We have an exec call and each department will have a weekly call on Monday or Tuesday. Then we’re usually pretty free the rest of the week. Outside of that, it’s all asynchronous communication," Amar Ghose, CEO of ZenMaid, said on the podcast. | |
ZipMessage | Async-First | "I'm personally pretty minimal when it comes to meetings and calls. They are important to have, but I think most meetings are unnecessary," Brian Casel, Founder at ZipMessage, said on the podcast. | |
Expensify | Async-First | "Barrett shares how he's kept the headcount to 140 while generating over a million dollars of revenue per employee, how an employee-first acquisition model was their key to growth, and how an asynchronous work culture means the sun never sets on the Expensify empire." |
20 Unlimited PTO Companies With The Best Work-Life Balance
These 20 well-known companies offer unlimited PTO (or vacation days). This is the main tool by which the company commits to a great work-life balance for its employees.
Company | Policy | Jobs | Story |
Asana | Unlimited PTO |
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Buffer | Minimum PTO (15 days) | Search Buffer jobs |
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Evernote | Unlimited PTO | Search Evernote jobs | Evernote |
General Electric | Unlimited PTO | Search General Electric jobs |
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GitHub | Flexible PTO | Search GitHub jobs | GitHub |
GitLab | Unlimited PTO | Search GitLab jobs | GitLab |
Grubhub | Unlimited PTO | Search Grubhub jobs | Benefit News |
Hubspot | Unlimited PTO | Search Hubspot jobs | Hubspot |
Instacart | Unlimited PTO | Search Instacart jobs | QuerySprout |
Unlimited PTO | Search LinkedIn jobs | LinkedIn | |
MammothHR | Unlimited PTO | Search MammothHR jobs | BizJournals |
Netflix | Unlimited PTO | Search Netflix jobs | Inc |
Oracle | Unlimited PTO | Search Oracle jobs | Comparably |
Roku | Unlimited PTO | Benefit News | |
SoFi | Unlimited PTO | Search SoFi jobs | Glassdoor |
Sony Electronics | Non-Accrual | Search Sony Electronics jobs | Attendance Bot |
StitchFix | Unlimited PTO | Search StitchFix jobs | StitchFix |
Unlimited PTO | Search Twitter jobs | US News | |
VMWare | Non-Accrual | Search VMWare jobs | VMWare |
Workday | Unlimited PTO | Search Workday jobs | Workday Benefits |
20 Sabbatical Leave Companies With The Best Work-Life Balance
These 20 well-known companies offer paid sabbatical leave. This is the main tool by which the company commits to a great work-life balance for its employees.
Company | Policy | Jobs | Story |
Adobe | 4 weeks after 5 years | Office Simplify | |
Arm | 20 days after 4 years | Best Companies | |
Autodesk | 6 weeks |
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Automattic | 3 months after 5 years | Automattic | |
Buffer | 6 weeks after 5 years | Buffer | |
Clif Bar | 6-8 weeks after 7 years | Business Insider | |
Epic | 4 weeks after 5 years | CNN Money | |
General Mills | 6 weeks after 4 years | LinkedIn | |
HubSpot | 4 weeks after 5 years | Hubspot Careers | |
Intel | 8 weeks after 7 years | Stories Incorporated | |
Microsoft | 8 weeks after 10 years | Cutler | |
Nike | 5 week after 10 years | Business Insurance | |
Patagonia | 2 months | Zenefits | |
PayPal | 4 weeks after 5 years | PayPal Benefits | |
PricewaterhouseCoopers | 4 weeks | Business Management Daily | |
REI | 4 weeks | Outside Business Journal | |
Timberland | 12 and 24 weeks | Zenefits | |
Vistaprint | 4 weeks after 5 years | Arcoro | |
VMware | 3 months after 5 years | Toggl | |
Zillow | 3 weeks paid 3 weeks unpaid | Forbes |
Think we missed a great company for work-life balance?
Comment below with the company name. We’ll investigate that company’s work-life balance (and credit you for the tip, if you’d like).
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