Efficiency focused vacation policies are destroying your company

Gone are the days when people decide whether to work or stay in a company simply based on paycheck. With more and more people seeing the value in holistic wellbeing amid this pandemic, professionals are building career choices on job satisfaction, work benefits, and company culture. Jeffrey Pfeffer and John F. Veiga’s study, Putting People First for Organizational Success, sees the positive correlation between employee-centric management and business growth. It is proven that how companies treat their employees impacts overall operations, yet many employers still choose to focus on improving short term efficiencies. 

Employees don’t just look for what’s on their paychecks, but on the overall employee experience

Leave benefits are one of the things employees consider. In the case of paid leaves, in the Philippines, law mandates that employees are entitled to just a total of five paid service incentive leaves (SILs). Companies have the prerogative to adhere to this minimum or provide more. At TaskUs, teammates earn one planned and one unplanned leave per month. That’s a total of 24 paid leaves per year, plus a paid birthday leave—all of which do not need the approval of their supervisors.

However, most companies implement strict conditions in approving leave requests. Some companies base leave approval on workload, some require employees to have perfect attendance and a great track record, while for others, only two percent of the organization is allowed to take a leave per day. Even on holidays! 

Conditional leave policies will backfire on you

Depriving people of their leave benefits has repercussions for both parties. Who can better attest to this than employees themselves? Airren, a TaskUs teammate, previously worked at a company with conditional leave benefits. She was set on a trip to her hometown to commemorate her father’s first death anniversary, but for her leave to be approved, her performance scores had to be top-notch. Granting of leaves was on a ‘first come, first served’ basis, and just when she was about to file for a leave, another person had already taken the slot. This became one of the reasons she resigned. How should performance be considered when dealing with death?

Another teammate, MJ, never had the chance to choose her own vacation time in her previous company. MJ was planning on using her vacation leave to attend her child’s school activity. She gave her supervisor a month’s notice but was told to wait two weeks prior to her chosen date to file the request. Because of conditional policies, her leave was denied. Since she couldn’t neglect her duty as a parent, she took an unauthorized leave, which her team was unprepared for. Does the business win in circumstances like this?

Dean is another teammate, who at his previous company, also asked his team leader a month prior if he could take a leave for his son’s birthday. He continuously followed up for weeks and maintained a high score and a perfect attendance in order to get his leave approved. He only got an answer a day before his supposed vacation: it was denied. Left with no choice, Dean risked having an AWOL tag for him to celebrate with his son. Would Dean have been a better performer if he would have gone to work instead of celebrating with his son over the duration of his employment?

Keeping employees to their workstations is not the answer. Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels.

Airren, MJ, and Dean’s previous companies probably think conditional leave policies are the answers to ensuring productivity, unaware of the fact that these may also result in employee dissatisfaction. And because employees are dissatisfied, they tend to care less about work, and consequently, under-perform. Apart from a decline in performance, employee disengagement also results in higher absenteeism rates that businesses might be unprepared for, especially during the holidays.

A win-win situation

So what did we do at TaskUs? In the last quarter of 2018, we anticipated the high absenteeism during the holidays and took a unique approach that’s beneficial for both employees and the business. The new policy was simple: within a month-long lock-in period, employees can file as much of their existing leave credits for the weeks of Christmas and New Year. This assured teammates of their leaves and allowed them to make holiday plans with their families and friends. It also allowed the leadership better foresight on staffing requirements and provided our workforce management team ample time to prepare and think of ways to bridge staffing gaps.

The effects of this change were immediate. Teammates were happier and more engaged. On the business side, we had better control on unplanned absenteeism. In fact, unplanned absenteeism dropped by over 50% globally. And because we had better planning, we received less client escalations.

Our site leaders can also attest to this. Chico Inong, who steers the ship in our Pampanga site, sees it as transparency between the company and our employees. Since teammates are given the liberty to enjoy their benefits irrespective of performance, attendance, tenure and even reason, they develop trust in the company and communicate with their leaders more openly.

Communication goes hand in hand. The holidays are critical working days and Jean Parlade, SVP of Operations, is also honest with her teammates about staffing requirements during these days. The use of positive reinforcement through implementing a 300% salary rate, engagement activities on site, and constant communication between leaders and their teams goes a long way. The result? Almost half of those who have filed for leaves retracted their request and came to work instead. By giving them options, people don’t feel pushed into a corner.

Since the policy took effect, productivity has never been higher even during the holidays. The fact that our absenteeism was lower also enabled us to take on additional work for our clients who have other partners struggling to meet service levels due to staffing challenges. 

The importance of personal time in the new normal

Work-life balance is key in our culture. By giving our teammates time to spend with their loved ones and pursue their passions, they become more energized once they come back to work. We firmly believe in the impact of employee satisfaction on the big picture: happy employees mean happy customers, and happy customers mean happy clients. 

Work-life balance is still essential even as we work from home

We need pro-people policies now more than ever. Telecommuting has been the new norm but that doesn’t mean teammates should be deprived of their leaves just because they’re at home. Working from home doesn’t necessarily guarantee work-life-balance. For some people, taking some time off may be their way of slowing down and getting a semblance of what’s normal in this “new normal.” The way we work may have changed but how companies treat their people shouldn’t. 

As we slowly make our way back into our offices, it is inevitable that more people would want to take time off. However, people-first practices return as much to the company as they do to employees. Our leave policy is proof that there are ways to grow the business without sacrificing employee welfare. Give your people the benefits they deserve and have worked hard for—no conditions must apply.