Today is the first day back from our team’s very first “Summer Rest” - a week-long break for all of our team members ALL AT ONCE.
When we started informing our clients about it several weeks ago, we were surprised at how surprised everyone about this. They were all so supportive and happy we were doing it, but we also heard a common question… “You can do that?!”
Yes. Yes you can.
Because for our team, this summer rest is more than a vacation. It’s an expression of our values. And in 2022 it’s a key initiative in our annual plan. Let me tell you more…
It all started when I first read Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman at the end of 2021 (Easily the most impactful book I’ve read in the last year.). In the book, Burkeman describes a 2013 Swedish study by Terry Hardig showing a correlation between happiness and the number of Swedes who were off of work simultaneously. “When many were on vacation at once, it was as if an intangible, supernatural loud of relaxation had settled over the nation as a whole.”
When I reflected on my own experiences of “taking vacation time,” this checked out. Of course it’s always lovely to have some down-time, but when everyone else is working, there can often be a nagging feeling that you “should” be checking in. Or worse, the dread that settles in the morning you return when you realize all of the tasks and emails you need to catch up on from the time you were away.
Meanwhile, when one person is away for too long, it’s no fun for the rest of the team either. We’re a small team, and although we’re all cross-trained so we can cover each other in case of emergency, having to fill in for a full week is a lot of extra strain on the team.
This idea of taking a “rest” together was starting to really sound great. But like many inspiring ideas from books, it might have just stayed in my head if it weren’t for two important aspects of our business…
Our Annual Planning Rhythm
Our Core Values
Every year in December, we take stock of the successes and challenges of the previous year and make a plan for how we want to shift things to move us ever-closer to our vision. This year, one of the things that came to light was that we have an A+ team and needed to take intentional and systematic action to keep The Process Mavens an awesome place to work.
We use the OKR framework for writing our annual goals, and it was clear we needed an annual objective that was all about sustaining a remarkable work culture. But what should that objective be?
To figure it out, we went back to our core values. Since core values are the shared set of values and beliefs of EVERYONE in the business, we knew that whatever we put in place needed to align to them.
LOVE HUMANS - We put people first in the work we do.
LEARN & EVOLVE - We are curious, we love a challenge and are obsessed with learning and growing.
OWN IT BRAVELY - We all have a high degree of ownership and can’t stand letting people down.
MINDFUL PRESENCE - We know that giving our mindful presence to others is a gift and make it a priority.
So as you can see, we have a bunch of highly-committed, striving, empathetic people who love to do hard things but also could run the risk of taking on too much. This means, there was a delicate balance to be struck. And so we came up with “The Process Mavens is a challenging and nourishing place to work.”
Like any good OKR, there are some key results that we’ll use to clearly measure whether we reached our objective or not, but I’ll spare you the details this time around. But what is relevant is that our first “Summer Rest” was born out of is objective, in service of “nourishment.” (And we’ve got 3 more weeks planned throughout the year!)
Since we communicated this break months in advance, we were able to avoid negatively impacting clients.
Since we were all off at the same time, there was no need to fill in for others.
And here I am, coming back from a WHOLE week off, and I can honestly say I don’t feel a bit overwhelmed.
We still need to do some analysis with the team to make sure there were no negative impacts, but so far it seems like nothing but a nourishing win. I highly recommend this.
Perhaps it doesn’t make sense for you to do a week-long summer rest for your business, (Although, I’d invite you to really reflect on the “truth” of that), but is there something you can do to create a more nourishing place to work for your team? Even an extra Friday or two off this summer might feel SO WONDERFUL, allowing families to get away for some long summer weekends.
Remember, it’s your business… YOU get to create the experience you desire for your team. (And it can be a work of art.)