Paid Time Away from Work

This policy addresses discretionary leave time used for recreation and to attend to personal needs and obligations. For other types of leave required by applicable law (i.e., sick and safe leave, family leave, jury duty, etc.,) please see the Leave of Absence Policy.

Flexible leave for vacation and personal time away from work

Our flexible time-away-from-work policy responds to our commitment to respect and trust. Because we expect everyone to be managers of one, folks at every level of responsibility and in every role may manage their own time away from work in consultation with the people who depend on them, within these general guidelines:

  1. We work collaboratively and we don’t want this flexible policy to get in the way of our collective success. Please make sure your time away is coordinated well in advance (no less than 2 weeks) with those who depend on you (e.g. your workplan stakeholders), especially during popular vacation windows.

You may take up to 20 consecutive days of Away Time in a single leave, provided you’ve arranged coverage with your team/stakeholders. Consecutive leave of longer than 20 consecutive days will be considered case-by-case (effective Jan 1, 2024). For non-exempt full-time employees, you shall be paid 6 hours at your current hourly rate for each day of Away Time.

  1. For compliance purposes and to help monitor the success of our flexible away time policy, you MUST log away time in Justworks (see below).

  2. Other than situation that fall under labor laws and regulations (e.g. sick and leave, family leave, jury duty etc.), there are no distinct categories of leave time, such as vacation vs personal days, and there is no accrual.

Away Time for Permanent Exempt Employees

There is no strict upper limit to time away from work for the year.

One risk of having a no-cap policy is (according to research) that people tend not to take time off. People senior in their careers are expected to both model taking time off for work-life balance and to respectfully encourage it in others.

We monitor the time off trends to make sure that our policy is not resulting in people taking less time than if we were to have a set number of vacation days. In 2022, which was not a full year for most employees, folks used about 10 days of vacation (above the 17 days of company holidays). The Median for 2023 (as of Sept) is 14 days. Some guidelines:

  • Please schedule NO LESS THAN 20 days of restorative time away (vacation and holidays) per year. A typical vacation / holiday allotment at a traditional company looks like 10 holidays + 10 vacation days. Our holidays total 17 days, so if you don’t take at least another 3 days off, you’re not even taking the time you would under a traditional vacation policy.

  • Please try to take a sufficiently long, consecutive block of Away Time (e.g. 2 weeks) to can fully disconnect and recharge at least once a year. This is a primary purpose of the no-cap vacation policy – otherwise, one could argue that 17 holidays + 15 vacation days with a use-it-or-lose-it would be better.

The foregoing shall not apply during an exempt employees first 30 calendar days of employment, when you will only be entitled to take 2 days of Away Time. Your first onboarding period is an important time. Please schedule your start date to avoid it being interrupted by pre-scheduled vacation time (effective Jan 1, 2024).

Time Away shall not be deemed earned or accrued for purposes of wage and hours laws and shall not be paid out or otherwise compensated at the end of the year or an employee’s employment.

Away Time for Full-Time Non-Exempt Hourly Employees

Full-time non-exempt hourly employees are entitled to 12 Away Time days each year. Up to 5 unused vacation days may be carried over into the following year.

Unless required by applicable law, Away Time shall not be deemed earned or accrued for purposes of wage and hour laws, rules and regulations and unused vacation time shall not be paid out or otherwise compensated at the end of a year or an employee’s employment. Your Away Time pay shall equal 6 hours each day at your regular hourly rate of pay.

Holidays

What’s the point of holidays when you have flexible unlimited time away? Well, for holidays, the assumption is that you will NOT be working, so you don’t need to coordinate time off (whereas the assumption on regular work days is that you will be at work unless you’ve coordinated time off).

End of year holiday

The office is closed for the 7 days from Christmas Eve until New Year’s Day (inclusive; if Xmas Eve falls on a weekend, holiday is starts the Friday prior, and if New Year’s Day falls on the weekend, the holiday includes the Monday following). Everyone is encouraged to take a break and step away from work so we can all return refreshed for a new year!

  • Please be sure to notify external partners (e.g. via your email signature) of our end of year closure so they’re not taken by surprise.

  • Please make sure to set your out of office messages.

Other holidays

Folks are encouraged, but not compelled, to take time away during “traditional,” “bank,” or “federal” holidays. Please help us make sure the “office” is “closed” for meetings and calls.

  • January - Martin Luther King Jr. Day

  • February - Presidents’ Day

  • May - Memorial Day

  • June - Juneteenth

  • July - Independence Day

  • September - Labor Day

  • October - Columbus Day / Indigenous People’s Day

  • November - Veterans Day

  • November - Thanksgiving and Day after Thanksgiving

Employees who are using Time Away, or any other leave at the time a holiday occurs are not entitled to receive Time Away pay and holiday pay for the same day.

How to take time off

There are just two requirements for taking time off:

  1. Coordinate with the people you work with. People who depend on you should not be surprised to find that you’re not working that day.

  2. Provide advance notice via Slack (e.g. “hey, team - as a reminder, I’ll be away in 2 weeks. Please let me know if you have deadlines to coordiante with me.”)

  3. Please invite the HR Shared Calendar to your out of office events, if you’re marking them in your calendar (or just create them in the HR calendar)

  4. Likewise, Slack status, auto-responders, etc. should be set up to keep the ball rolling while you are Away.

  5. Whenever you’re taking a full day off, submit a vacation “request” in Justworks. This is so that we can track how well we’re doing on work-life balance as a group, and to track the leave time that we’re legally required to track in various jurisdictions.