GM! We would like to initiate a discussion regarding a proposed adjustment to our Paid Time Off (PTO) policy, particularly focusing on the notice period for vacations, with a specific emphasis on our valued dev team.
Current Time-Off Policy Notice:
The current notice period is twice the number of days a contributor plans to take off. For example, a 1 week absence would require 2 weeks of notice. Check here: PTO policy
Proposed Change:
In light of evolving needs and to foster better alignment and accountability, our CTO, Krati, has suggested a modification specifically for the dev team. The proposal is to extend the notice period to 3 weeks for vacations. This adjustment aims to facilitate improved resource allocation, effective planning, and synchronization with the unique timelines associated with development work. We want to ensure we have a healthy balance of valuing contributor’s vacation time and also meeting our deadlines.
Discussion Points:
Should a 3 week PTO notice period be implemented as a DAO-wide policy?
Should a 3 week PTO notice period be Working Group specific?
Key points for consideration include:
Flexibility Across Working Groups: How can we ensure flexibility within different working groups to manage the notice period based on the demands of their workload and the timely delivery of projects?
Implementation: What steps should be taken to implement this change smoothly, and how can we ensure that contributors are well-informed about the updated policy?
Impact Assessment: How do you anticipate this change affecting your team’s workflow and productivity? Are there potential challenges or benefits that need to be considered?
Steps you need to take when taking a time-off
1. Tell your working group lead about your plans. 2. Notify the team in the availability channel 3 weeks prior to when you are leaving on vacation. 3. Notify the team the day of you are taking vacation in the team availability channel. 4. A bonus is to update your status or change your status on Discord and/or name in Telegram to “AFK/Away/Vacation until the X date.” A short video guide here. 5. Adding time off in Clockify should be in two places: (1) Timesheet or Time tracker tab AND (2) Time Off tab
We encourage members from all working groups to share their perspectives and insights on how this adjustment could impact their respective teams.Your input is crucial in shaping the direction of this policy adjustment. We believe that a collaborative effort will lead to a policy that meets the needs of our diverse community.
Should the 3 week PTO notice period be a DAO wide policy?
There is one part that is confusing about these options.
I don’t see the practical difference of making the 3 week PTO notice a DAO-wide policy or Working Group specific policy if we don’t specify WHICH working group.
Or perhaps some more interesting questions are:
Should Working Groups decide their own time off policy, and if so what? How can we encourage them to do so?
OR
Should Chapters Leads decide time-off policy since they are doing the resource planning for WGs? In this specific instance @Kratijain is asking this notice from the Development Chapter.
Thank you Heather for taking the lead on this post.
I have a questions: About the system we currently have as described above, what doesn’t work?
Do people know the current one? I didn’t know it.
Do people honor the current one? (I didn’t know it, who else?)
I don’t see much sense in making this mandatory, not even to mention DAO-wide. That’s a no from me, I think each group should have the autonomy to make these decisions within, and maybe it’s up to the WG steward to agree with their group.
Now, that I know what’s the current policy, I like it better. It seems way more reasonable.
I wonder what this means in practice… If I want to take 3 days OR a week off I should announce it 3 weeks ahead? I wonder what our devs think about this since this is coming directly from their group…and I am also interested to hear from @Kratijain to clarify where this suggestion is coming from. Maybe better communication is a solution rather than creating a new policy.
Im almost sorry for writing this as I normally don’t negate forum posts, but maybe I am just missing enough context.
I feel like it’s going to be really hard to enforce or police this. Can we really say “you CAN’T take off time if you didn’t mention it 3 weeks in advance?”
My personal work schedule is so chaotic since I end up traveling so much. Some days I work 12 hours, others I work none. Maybe I work Sunday and don’t work on Friday.
I think the issues need to be made clear before we enforce a new policy. Like, “we tried to launch this thing but had no idea that x person was going to be off!” And then we solution to fix the problems we actually have.
I get that Krati wants to make planning & resource management more clear within our dev team, but what works for that problem doesn’t necessarily work across the entire DAO.
Hey everyone! I updated the polls, so I hope the questions are clearer and give us more specific results.
I think an issue we’ve had in the past has been specific to the develop team. For example, a dev announces on a Friday that they are taking next week off, then the team misses a deadline because the dev on vacation wasn’t available. I think for this example, there should be a 3 week required notice for a 1 week or longer vacation. On one hand, don’t want to micro-manage people. On the other hand, people should be aware when their sudden absence has negative effects on the team and meeting product deadlines.
From my perspective, I think each Working Group should make their own “policy” around PTO notice period. For us in DAO Ops and GM HR, we don’t have strict product deadlines, so a 3 week notice period is less necessary. Furthermore, many of us can fill the gaps because don’t have specific skillsets, the way a Frontend, Backend, and DevOps contributors do.
I also don’t mind and don’t think our work is negatively impacted when a contributor takes a couple days off with short notice. In fact for the DAO Ops and GM HR team, I’d rather maintain the flexible and accommodating work culture because I think contributor are more satisfied in the long run. Our work still gets completed.
I agree with this statement, i think each WG lead should be able to change policies as needed depending on the needs of their working group.
I think the development chapter really needs to be able to forcast availability, as they are juggling a lot of balls in the air, just within Giveth, there are the variety of deadlines from grants and QF rounds… but then in GM we have Pairwise, ENS Wallets, and other random gigs that come up.
I think it’s fair to make an expectation that time off needs to be scheduled 3 weeks ahead of time. Of course, people sometimes have personal emergencies or sick days, but fostering a culture of committing to release dates as a team is important and we might need to sacrifice some flexibility to get there.
As a side note, with the GM Operational Merger I think we should really give more authority to the chapters to manage their processes, and that DAO wide policies might not make as much sense, as each chapter will have different needs.
