Vacation policy has always bothered me. As an employee, I felt guilty for taking time, even if it was stored up and would expire if not taken. While working at a company with ‘unlimited vacation’ I felt like it was a trap. As a business owner, it’s tough to come up with the kind of benefits that motivate appropriately and doesn’t become a guilt trap. While exploring the extremes, we discovered a way to actually offer (and feel good about) six-week sabbaticals.

Work/Team/Life Balance

We all want to be happy, motivated, and excited to go to work every day, but few of us have found the dream scenario that gives all of the flexibility while still accomplishing real work.

Pretty much every human thinks they are self-motivated and able to manage goals while having ultimate flexibility over where/when they work, but in reality that is pretty damn rare. I intentionally added ‘team’ to the work/life balance here, because there is also something about being part of a team that puts their needs above our own. Someone may be most productive between 9pm and 4am, but they aren’t going to provide much value to the team if they aren’t there when everyone else is. Being on a team means helping with random questions and ideas at times that may not be super convenient. This all adds pressure to have people in the same room when they are working together… and this has a not-so-swell effect on the ‘life’ part of the balance.

Our experience with long absences

The first time I had a designer who took six weeks of maternity leave, it honestly scared the crap out of me. We were (and are) small enough that I knew it would be a painful six weeks. When it was over, the period of ‘catch up’ was actually not bad at all and before long, it felt like she had been there the whole time. One of our developers is also in the Army National Guard and recently had to leave for four weeks of training. It happened to fall over one of our busiest months and he was completely inaccessible for the entire duration, but I couldn’t very well pause that project. I was pretty stressed out but the rest of the team did a great job with re-prioritizing and keeping everything moving, and again, as soon as he was back, it was as if it didn’t even happen. The rest of the staff has been out for extended vacations with the same result, and I hope they all came back feeling happy and re-charged and not like they have to feel bad about taking time off.

In both extended cases, they weren’t gone for vacation or pleasure. These were absences that the company is obligated to accommodate and every business owner or manager experiences this at some point, so we aren’t heroes for fulfilling our obligations. But we can look at it as either a learning experience or something to dread, and I think we came away with a feeling that it’ll all be OK if people are gone for a while and it isn’t a reason to panic or fret.

Where this leads us

As we grow and need to fill some roles, we need to understand what it’s going to take to find *and retain* talented people. Our benefits are real and we think they are pretty generous. But is money enough to make people happy when they are here and at home? When you put $5,000 into someone’s profit sharing plan, the immediate excitement seems to wear off – just like raises and bonuses. It seems like it’s always a game on both parts to reward and motivate properly. At some point, there has to be more than this race for $.

It all seems to come back to this idea of a work/life balance. If we are the team we think we are, and if we hire people who share our motivation and values, we should be able to have high expectations during work hours and find ways to make the other parts of their lives better in the process. We know we can not only survive during long absences, but we can use them as opportunities to play with clients/projects we might not touch otherwise. So, we’re building this team and we’re building these values. If you come come along for the ride, we’re going to expect you to leave for a paid six-week sabbatical, not only guilt free — but knowing that your team is here busting ass and feeling good about it.