A Fine Line Between Privilege and Obligation

With the holiday season around the corner, many of you are probably pondering if and when to close your offices for the holidays. One company recently announced to its employees that they will be shut down during the last week in December. The leaders advised employees that December 25 is a paid holiday, as is January 1, and that the employees should take the other four days off either as vacation or as unpaid time. This arrangement might pose difficulties for some employees who do not have, or would rather not use, vacation time. Nevertheless, the communication makes it clear that the company will be shut down and people can take the time off guilt-free.

At Think Shift, our U.S. vacation policy is simple: Vacation is good; take some!

As such, we do not have any prescribed number of vacation days. We also do not have sick days. For that matter, we do not declare any holidays! So, for example, December 25 is not a holiday in our company. Every employee makes an individual decision as to whether they wish to work on a particular day or not. Each employee can take any amount of paid time off (PTO). They are, however, held responsible for their work. And, to be totally transparent, every employee’s use of PTO is made public.

At face value, one might consider this an empowering privilege. After all, you can decide how much time you want to take off and when to work. “Just get the work done,” the boss tells you. Each employee is responsible for responding to their work even when they are away. They can either ask one of their colleagues to cover for them, or stay in constant contact with the office, or both. Is this really a privilege?

During the holidays each employee will decide which days to work and which to take off. The company does not have to make any decisions; the employees do. But, will they have the same guilt-free time off that their counterparts in the more traditional companies enjoy?

In fact, most of us stay connected to the office every day, including on our vacation. After all, somebody might need something from me for which I had not made adequate arrangement. Personally, when I am on vacation, I usually spend an hour or two each day doing email. But I take a lot of time off. I take about 10 weeks of PTO in a year. Remember, that includes all the holidays, any sick days and vacation days. I also choose to work at least one day most weekends. When I travel with my wife on a vacation, I usually work on my email on the plane while she is reading a book. People have asked me when I stop working. I don’t. I simply mix work with pleasure. This schedule is a choice I make. Is this a privilege or an obligation?

Do the other employees in the company keep a similar schedule? Each person chooses a schedule that best fits their needs. But, every employee stays connected to the office all the time. After all, they have responsibilities that must be discharged even when they are away. Again, is this a privilege or an obligation?

There is a fine line between a privilege and an obligation. The more privileges you have the more obligations you assume.

This is not unlike the concept of Managerial Discretion. What do our employees think of our vacation policy? I am pretty confident that, given a choice between our policy and a more traditional one, every one of them would opt for our current policy. Is that because it is just better? No, in fact there are certainly people in the workforce who would prefer a more prescriptive policy. Our policy will not work when applied to another group that was not suitably selective in its hiring. With a policy like ours, we try to hire the kind of people that will seek the privilege and rise to the obligations.

Food for Thought is our way of sharing interesting concepts on corporate leadership and management with others who might find it useful. The thoughts offered are intended to be controversial and thought provoking. They are intended to help our readers intentionally realize their potential, through what we call Potentionality.