The truth about flexible-leave policies in the new normal
Prior to the pandemic, the idea of enabling our employees to take a day off whenever they needed was a fantastic addition to enhancing our employee welfare initiatives. However, when remote working became our primary modus operandi in the last 2 years, our once successful flexible-leave policy started to dwindle in efficacy. This sparked a topic of discussion amongst the leaders at Workato: In this new normal where working arrangements have become increasingly flexible, how can we shape our current leave policies to better meet the needs of our employees?
During the lockdown period and the many uncertain months that followed, employees generally stopped taking leave. Like many home-bound employees all around the world, we found ourselves gravitating back to our work desks even after official work hours and started to find it more challenging to draw clear boundaries between work and rest. The lines also blurred for employees with caregiving responsibilities—I experienced firsthand how childcare closure and constantly changing regulations meant juggling professional demands with caring for my child – resulting in high levels of stress and anxiety.
The genesis of the Global Day Off Program
Driven by our operating principles to “act now and prioritise the long-term”, we knew it was imperative to find a solution to ensure that the remote working environment remains conducive for our employees over prolonged periods.
In 2020, upon spotlighting the struggles faced by working parents, we decided to introduce a day off on the Fridays before Mother’s Day and Father’s Day weekends for parents to take a break and spend some downtime with their families properly. This small initiative ended up reaping immense support from employees, even those who were not parents. The common consensus was that the benefits of the day off came to them serendipitously, helping them better define the boundaries between work and rest.
The positive response spurred the continuation of this company-wide day off on an ad-hoc basis throughout the year, under the presumption that COVID-19 would tide over in the foreseeable future. However, as the situation worsened, a monthly company-wide day off was implemented instead in 2021. We announced the day offs at the start of every month to allow employees to schedule their additional vacation days around them to get ample rest.
Many employees also noted that they enjoyed these day offs as it allowed them to truly disconnect from work. For instance, local holidays are generally not aligned across the countries where Workato operates. Employees could not truly log off from work during their local public holidays, knowing they would be coming back to a backlog of emails and tasks from global offices that were still online. This concern was eradicated with the company-wide day offs.
Seeing the benefits of unplugging as a whole, we officially launched the Global Day Off Program in 2022 where we curated and announced 15 global day offs at the beginning of the year. We aligned these global day offs to be on Fridays/Mondays to create long weekends, and with major local holidays in some countries. The careful selection of the global day offs and its early announcement is aimed at encouraging our employees to start planning vacations and breaks throughout the year (especially as we started seeing more travel restrictions being lifted across the world).
A focus on employee wellbeing is good for business
Our employees reside at the heart of Workato and have been pivotal in driving our business continuity in times of uncertainty, and the phenomenal growth we had in the last few years. Employee wellbeing is therefore a top priority for us. Taking an agile approach in developing our employee programs, we iterate on our programs based on continuous feedback from our employees through an employee listening strategy that gathers inputs through pulse surveys, an anonymous 24/7 feedback channel, fireside chats / townhalls, conversations with team leaders and employees. We want happy and well-rested employees who are ready to support Workato’s continued growth, and will continue to align our employee wellbeing programs with changing employee needs.
