We keep saying that ubiquitous connectivity will change how we work and how we play in the future. But did you ever think it would provide you with unlimited vacation days?

According to an article in the Sunday Boston Globe magazine, it does at Netflix. Netflix is one of the visionary companies who has done away with the traditional corporate policy of “two or three weeks off a year” and instituted a policy of “no set number of vacation days.” Salaried employees are allowed to spend as much or as little time out of the office as they want. The catch? They still have to ensure that they get all their work done, vacation days or not.

Now not requiring employees to take vacation may simply be corporate speak for no vacation at all as mobile phone-tethered executives check in as easily from Chile as from Chicago and answer email before and after their golf games. But what goes unsaid in the article is that Anywhere networks have given employees that choice. There is no rule that says employees must stay connected while on vacation. Connectivity simply gives them the option.

The Anywhere Network is reshaping the balance between work life and home life, and businesses and employees are still groping for the right answer. We can’t really say if the Netflix solution is the right or wrong approach (although from where I sit, it sound eminently reasonable assuming that appropriate management responsibility and authority). But there is one upside to businesses not mentioned in the article and that bears contemplation: when employees are entitled to unlimited vacation days, businesses don’t have to pay employees for unused ones.