Rest is a right, not a perk
Amongst totally new work standards, a global pandemic, and the pressure of performing in a time of civil and political unrest, it’s time to reexamine time-off.
Today we doubled our company wide time off from 10 days to 22 days and maybe you should, too.
When I built Frame.io, I wanted it to be a company that was unafraid to think originally. There is no standard that isn’t worth reexamining, whether it’s our product philosophies or our corporate culture, and 2020 made us reexamine how we take care of our employees’ mental health and physical well-being. After being thrust into work-from-home life, we’ve now had an opportunity to better understand its effects and what we need to keep work life sustainable. Tl;dr, there has been no loss in productivity, and people tend to work harder and longer than they did in the office. Of course, everyone has a different work-from-home setup and different challenges. For example, we have parents that are trying to manage at-home child care while trying to deliver 110% at work, while others live with roommates and spend many hours working from their bedrooms.
With the stress of a global pandemic, political and civil unrest, and massive internal growth and pressure, we knew we needed to create a more sustainable environment for our employees.
That’s why we doubled our employees’ paid time off from the 10 days we’d provided previously to 22 days in 2021. And, to be clear, this is in addition to our already unlimited time off policy. The biggest change we’ve made is two new week-long office closures — a winter break and a summer break — during which the whole company recharges. We think taking time off together is critically important. While unlimited time off sounds generous, numerous studies have shown that it’s challenging for employees to determine what is really appropriate to take. On top of that, you have the guilt of missing work and letting your colleagues down, or the anxiety and stress of the accumulated workload when you return. But by taking 2 full weeks off, all at the same time, everyone can truly disconnect and recharge in a way that feels challenging in a more traditional setup.
In addition to our week-long winter and summer breaks, we’re also making sure that we have at least one office closure day per month. That means in the months that don’t already have a holiday, we’ll be adding one so our employees will never go more than one month without a 3-day weekend.
At the end of the day, the theory here is not complicated. Healthy, well rested, mentally sound people will produce better work and feel better about doing it. That doesn’t mean we’re taking our foot off the gas — quite the contrary. We set an enormously high bar for our achievements at Frame.io. Internally, we often talk about what it means to be truly great and to be the best. There are no shortcuts to accomplishing incredible things in life, and if you want to be part of the elite, it requires sacrifice. That said, even Michael Jordan had an off season.
