The vacation is over

The vacation is over

Attracting and nourishing talent are among the most important responsibilities of a founder. At our company, one way we build culture is by empowering employees through personal responsibility. Put bluntly, we will treat you like an adult. :)

Just recently, this philosophy led us down an interesting path… the path of the ‘unlimited vacation policy'.

Now, you may wonder, “Why the heck would a founder (of all people…) allow his employees to take unlimited personal time off?”

Well, it all began with…

Getting a haircut

When one of my killer salespeople asked me, "Hey, Anthony, can I take some time off to visit the hairdresser?" my initial response was, "Why do you need time off work for such a thing?" She explained it was a very special hairdresser and it would take a couple of hours, and for various reasons, working hours were the only time she could make it work. I thought and replied, "Look, two hours is really a long time. You have to get there; you have to get back. You're going to be out of the office for like half a day." So I told her to use her vacation time to take half a day off. Yet the conversation lingered in my head for a couple of days and I felt conflicted. Because here's the thing: This person's performance at work is incredible. She's had (and continues to have) a huge impact on our business; she works weekends and even on her vacation. Not that I want my team to work during their vacation. I actively encourage people to use vacation time to disconnect and recharge. I don't even take my laptop on vacation unless it's critical. I do, however, sometimes put my barber appointments in the middle of the week because it's the only time I can manage myself! I also work weekends and travel between Texas and Belgium, so sometimes the line is blurred between time on and time off. And so, all this got me thinking that our vacation policy might be a little unfair. Worse, I felt like a hypocrite.?

The rulebook

I recently befriended an entrepreneur who's coincidentally also a Belgian living in Texas. He told me about a book called 'No Rules, Rules,' by the Netflix co-founder, Reed Hastings. The book highlights an entire philosophy surrounding the increase in talent density. Now, some of the things mentioned in the book are very specific to Netflix's workplace culture. Still, it's essential that every company, and especially leadership, thinks hard about company culture. Since our inception, this is something DESelect has undoubtedly done more than most startups I know. Other than culture-centric companies often seeming to do better, countless entrepreneurial influencers recommend such focus, including Y Combinator, the startup accelerator.?

So reading the book, I realized, "Oh man, this is so like us." The book resonated with me in so many ways. You see, very early on, we defined and published our company principles manifesto. Two principles, in particular, are relevant to my story, as follows:

1. Trust. Because it's the foundation of doing business. As customers trust us, we trust one another to deliver our promise.?
2. Personal responsibility. Because we know individuals make a difference. Expecting our team to behave like adults, we must treat them as such.

The Netflix culture shares similarities with ours in that they look to find smart, capable people who can work autonomously and independently. Doing so reduces the need for micromanagement, and when you have good people you can trust, there's less need for control. Don't get me wrong; it doesn't make the job easier. It's quite the contrary as this shift in culture means that these people have to take on way more responsibility, and for some, it's a shock. At Netflix, they've taken trust to a whole new level. Apparently, new starters are often surprised by how much power they wield because some can sign off on million-dollar contracts without going through an entire layer of approval processes. We may not be there yet, but it looks like we are heading there.

The experiment

These days, over half the topics we discuss during our off-site management sessions, are talent-related. From hiring to making sure people are engaged, to considering what we can do about our culture, etc. I shared my story (and the book) with the team, and among several topics, we talked about the company's approach to time off. Following deep introspection and thinking through several scenarios, we took a giant leap and introduced a new unlimited paid time off (PTO) policy.?

I know, right? It's a big move, and I'm sure some business owners are reading this now who doubtless question mine and my management team's sanity. We're treating this as an experiment and have presented it to the broader company as such. We'll try it for a year and see if we can make it work, but we have a high degree of trust in our people, and we envisage that our people and our company will do well with this kind of policy.?

Naturally, When you give employees the freedom to take as much time off as they need, there are some essential issues to consider. Take time-tracking, for instance. Do we still need to monitor and record vacation time? We have two offices: our HQ in Antwerp, Belgium, and our new yet quickly growing office in Austin, Texas. It seems like there is no requirement to track time in Texas. In Belgium, however, it's a little less clear. In any case, we've chosen to keep tracking vacation time and people keep filling in vacation sheets, for now.

Of course, this new policy could go wrong in a few ways. For example, people could take unlimited time and be gone for a year after signing up. Needless to say that such a choice would be far from productive and very expensive for the company. I don't think this is likely, though. That said, we've taken another leaf from Netflix's book to support this policy, called "leading by context." Let's say you're in our Customer Success team. Would you take a six-week holiday when you know your colleagues are already out of the office, which means there's no customer support? In this instance, the onus is on the team member to use common sense and exercise personal responsibility by checking the impact of such a vacation, ensuring that colleagues will not be overburdened. Likewise, what effect would dumping one's work on others working very hard have on their mental health? Another example is salespeople approaching year-end. Always a time of high pressure, high engagements, long hours, the sales team works night and day to make sure we meet (or ideally overshoot) our quota. It's an intense period, so how would it be if you chose to ditch that last month to go on vacation? But having said that, cooperating with colleagues to avoid such instances, why not take a three or four-week break if it works for all? Why not take time off if you really need to recharge??

Checking in

For me, keeping a check on mental health is crucial. Checking in with myself and gifting myself time off when needed allows me to be more creative and sharp afterward. Sometimes if we're in the trenches too long, we can no longer objectively see the lay of the land. It's crucial to take a step back and rest. And then when you do come back, you come with a fresh perspective. Sounds like a cliche? Well, no, it's not.

Contrary to the idea that success only comes to people who "work hard, play hard," rest allows our minds and bodies to reset. So we genuinely do return a little bit different and renewed. And having checked out fully, we're likely to see things differently and notice what's broken that we didn't notice before. Taking a step back allows us to see what we were doing inefficiently or ineffectively. We can conceive with new fresh ideas, which I believe as a leader will ultimately improve, not just the well-being of our employees, but the business as a whole. So I think it makes sense on the human and business levels to do this.?

Of course, this can also go wrong in another way. Imagine a scenario where people wind up taking less to zero vacation time and wind up overworked. Here, too, it's just as essential to lead by context. Hence why I'm communicative with my team about my vacations. I recently went to Portugal and took some time in nature, hiking, and meditating. I practiced yoga, some sports, and of course, I enjoyed plenty of good dinners and a little wine because all of those things are excellent and bring balance. So if ever I see that my team members have been in the trenches for too long, I remind and implore them to take a vacation. I don't want people to burn out. I want them to be happy, healthy, and at peak performance. Just like top athletes, their recovery time is just as crucial as the hours they put in. We often forget that the brain works somewhat like a muscle. It needs time to heal, and it can also become injured. I, for one, never wish to see any of my team suffering from mental illness (such as burnout) as a result of overworking. That's not why we are here.

Ready, set,...

Sticking with the metaphor for a moment longer, we need to help our athletes stay in top shape while we try to build a world-class championship team. We need to train, coach, and lead them, but we also must make sure they can recover and restore.

Will our new unlimited time off policy work? I suppose only time will tell. One thing's for sure, putting such faith in our people brings us into entirely new territories of trust and cooperation. It's an exciting evolution in our business, and we welcome it with open arms!

To read more about DESelect’s company culture, head over to our About page or check out our Principles Manifesto.?