Why Paying Attention to Your Team’s PTO is So Important

My team is very autonomous in how we manage PTO, as no one needs to ask permission and I have our PTO software set to auto-approve all requests that come in. In a remote setting this dynamic can make it easy to lose track of who is out of the office on any given day—the little palm tree next to a name in Slack can easily by overshadowed by the usual flurry of activity. That can lead to the crappy experience we’ve all had, of no one noticing we were gone—that feeling is pronounced if your own manager didn’t notice.

“Really? You were gone? Huh, shows how observant I am!”

“LOL” (but actually 😔 )

Generally, people only take PTO when something of important is going on in their life, which is why it’s so important for leaders to pay attention when it happens. It’s a golden opportunity to show your genuine care and value for your team members not for their performance at work, but as human beings. Is something really exciting and awesome going on in their life? Camping trip? Exotic vacation? An important family event? Is it something sad? A lingering ailment? Are they feeling burned out?

Yes, we must use incredible tact and sensitivity in how we ask, and not pressure anyone to disclose something they don’t want to, but once you’ve established a foundation of genuine care and interest, I’ve almost always found my team members eager to connect and share the important things going on in their life.

The primary Op Mech we use to facilitate these conversations is having a product-wide Slack channel where anyone that is going to be out of the office is culturally expected to post with an @ to their sprint team and to the design team. It’s not just for individual contributors, either, but managers and leaders post as well. It feels very democratic, in that sense, and the language that someone uses to describe their absence is a great gauge of whether it’d be appropriate to follow up with a private “doing anything fun?” or “is everything OK?”

So, pay attention to PTO when it happens, and you can show your team just how much you care when they return and you not only noticed they were gone, but knew why it was important to them.