MLK Day - Does Your Business Recognize it as a Holiday?

Last year we officially made MLK Jr. Day an official paid work holiday for our team. It was a last-minute decision that we kind of rushed through in a haphazard way. One year later, I am reflecting on the decision, on leadership, and on change. 

Like many small businesses, we have a limited set of paid holidays. We strive to make up for it with a paid week off during the holidays and a generous PTO policy that allows ample time off. Our financial and operational formulas carefully factor in the available hours and days. Our thought had always been that observers of “other” holidays could use their PTO. Our list of paid holidays hasn’t changed in 25 years. 

I’m going to take you on a tangent, but it’s one that I hope other business leaders might be able to identify with, and I hope it will help you understand my thoughts and reasoning. 

I am an older mom of young kids, age 10 and age 4. I love how they keep me connected to the latest thinking and to the world as I age. From Indian-style changing to criss-cross-apple-sauce to Columbus Day evolving into Indigenous Peoples Day. They bring home new thinking that causes me to challenge the language we use, the traditions we celebrate, and even the rights and wrongs that are part of our belief systems. 

I am very comfortable with change. This is not entirely new to me. There were words we used when I was younger that dropped from my vocabulary long before my kids were born. Derogatory terms to describe people with learning differences, physical disabilities and mental illness, not to mention the negative words with their basis in degrading women. I’m pretty sure that I’ve just used words in this paragraph that are outdated and should be revised (feel free to educate and correct me in the comments!)

But somehow, as I get older, I am less in touch with the thinking behind the changes that they bring home to me. I need to be brought up to speed. The changes feel more drastic. The language corrections that I have used for 45+ years seem harder to correct and I find myself thinking “what is the right word this week?”. That’s not to say I disagree with any of it. It is merely an acknowledgement of my own struggles to remember and adjust... the uphill battle I seem to face with my own neurological programming. 

So bringing this back around to MLK Jr Day... 

For several years, my kids had the day off school, my nanny requested the day off to march with her family, and a black employee had requested the day off. At the same time, I found a deeper connection to friends and staff who are black, who are in interracial marriages or who have close black friends. I started listening more to them, to their stories, to their parents' stories, to some of what they still deal with, to their fears for the safety of their children. I found myself wondering - why aren’t we recognizing this absolutely pivotal change in the history of our country? 

So last year, last minute, I made the suggestion that we should close the office. Maybe swap it for Columbus Day. Everyone agreed. But here’s the catch - I have a crap memory and Columbus Day was never a paid holiday for us. Whoops. There goes all our math. But we closed the office.

So this year, as MLK Jr. Day approached, we debated again, “did we make this an official holiday or what that an oops?” I again ask, “can’t we swap it with Columbus Day or something?” True story... as embarrassing as it is. I really didn’t want to redo the math! I was corrected, once again, and while there was no time pressure in making the decision formal, I did not hesitate. 

Given the events of this past year, I think that we as business leaders need to take action and lead. What Martin Luther King, Jr. did set the gears of change into motion, but we still have so much more work to do. So many businesses pledged to update their policies, wrote letters of apology and pledged to be better under the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter.

I have several platforms, but I chose LinkedIn for this message. I challenge all of you as business leaders to consider the impact that you can have by acknowledging this day and everything Dr. King stood for. Yes, this is a federal holiday, but many businesses do not recognize it. Many people aren’t home with their kids talking to them about why it’s a day off. I think this is something that we need now as a country. By giving your ENTIRE team the day off - black, white, brown, and all other colors, to reflect, to consider, to listen, to march, to acknowledge, you are helping to recognize the work that is left to be done.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a leader. 

Leaders aren’t stagnant. Leaders are the drivers of change. They pull people through the uncertainty, the fear, the doubt and even the ignorance to the other side. They recognize the needs of the time and embody change and action. We have work to do as leaders. 

What King did took courage, charisma, eloquence and so much more. He did the really hard work... all you need to do is update a policy, and maybe redo a little math.

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I didn’t write this in advance as a marketing piece. These are my reflections from this morning, and now I’m going to go make my kids watch a video and discuss MLK Jr.