Here’s what happens when you surprise a team with a weeklong holiday

Earlier this month, our entire business got word that we were getting an extra week off. It was a paid week and all of us were going to take it within a single fortnight (50% of the business one week, 50% the next). I thought it was incredibly generous, seemingly unheard of and (initially) incredibly stressful… maybe even mildly annoying?

Wow, I just dove right in, didn’t I? Let me back up a sec. My name is Lori, you might know me as that lady who really loves vegan ice cream and is rapidly turning into her dog. Not to ruin any of the mystery, but I’m also the one who replies to your notes in the comments section (hi!).

This year has been a rollercoaster (a scary, rickety one) for everybody. There’s a particular tilt in that ride when you work in the toilet paper industry. You might’ve already heard, but panic buying did a real number on our business. At its peak, we were selling 28 rolls of toilet paper per second. To reserve stock for subscribers, we marked our site as sold out and ended up amassing a waitlist with over half a million people. It was an exciting (albeit exhausting) time and all of our focus went to getting toilet paper to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible.

We were all running on adrenaline and living room dance parties for a while, but at a certain point it all caught up to us. And I mean it all – remote work, partners who’d lost work, lack of childcare, fear, stress, uncertainty… all of it.  Ellie, our incredible VP of People and Culture, saw it happening and decided to do something pretty radical. Lucky for this blog, I had the privilege of talking to her about it.

The problem 

I don’t mean to pull a “we’re all just TOO passionate,” but the truth is that the people who work at Who Gives A Crap are incredibly passionate – to a fault, I would argue. We’re helpers by nature. We want to do a good job in our roles of course, but more than that, we want to do good for the world. Panic buying created an environment where we had the opportunity to do both – support our teammates in the hustle and watch new sales build to an unprecedentedly impactful donation. 

I know what you’re thinking, where’s the problem?

Lori: How did you start to realise that the team’s morale was on a downward trajectory? 

Ellie: Since March, we've been checking in with our team weekly to ensure that we know some of the really operational things that are important for us to know, like where everybody is, if they're well, if they're unwell, how we can support. Then we asked some deeper engagement and cultural questions like how people are generally feeling and how they’re handling this new way of working (and living!). We saw our team was experiencing lots of peaks and troughs in how they were feeling, both in terms of workload and just general mental health. We also knew that a lot of our team hadn't taken any time off since the start of the pandemic. We spent about two months with a very consistent message of, "Hey everyone, it's important to take time out. Please use your annual leave. It's there to be used. Plan time off right now and report back." No one did it. We even gave unlimited personal leave and hardly anyone used it. We were a little stumped.

I was one of the people who refused to take time off. I told myself that it wasn’t possible, there was too much to do. In reality, I think I used work as an escape from the anxiety I felt about the state of the world. By throwing myself into something positive, I could convince myself that I had control over what was going on around me. I knew I was tired, overwhelmed, and really not performing my best, but taking time off seemed unthinkable for so many reasons. One of which was the guilt.

Ellie: I don’t know how you feel about this, Lori, but I think there was an almost debilitating sense of gratitude for the fact we were a business that was thriving. I know from a People and Culture perspective, my peers in other industries were having very different challenges to us. Many people had to work through downsizing and we were trying to keep up with the pace.

Lori: Totally. It’s such an immense privilege to not only have a job right now, but to have one that I love. Admitting that I needed a break felt disrespectful. 

Ellie: Then there’s that fear of missing out, the fear of letting people down. Or the worry you’ll slow a project down. All of it was holding people back from doing what they needed to do, which was take time out.

Getting creative with solutions

While my team and I were being stubborn, Ellie was behind the scenes thinking about how to lead the business to a better headspace.

Ellie: I had to really get my head around the problem – we were moving too fast and the excitement in the business was too constant for people to feel comfortable (or want to!) step out of it. 

Lori: And then how did you approach finding a solution? Did you map out different options? Do some research? Google it?  

Ellie: It was a bit of everything. I had some solo thinking time, held a brainstorm with our leadership team, did a bit of research and went through a bunch of options. I also leaned on some of the books and podcasts about priorities and balance that I find helpful. Drive is a bit of a classic on this. It reinforces the importance of putting yourself and your life before work. Ultimately, I wanted to test something big. One idea was a full week off for everyone – I thought it would be really meaningful. I asked Cat, our Efficiency & Collaboration Manager, to model out a few different scenarios and how we could make that work. We landed on splitting the team’s time out over two weeks because then we could keep the business open.

Lori: And then you proposed the idea to the rest of the Executive Team? 

Ellie: Yep. Full disclosure, I went into that meeting fully prepared for push back. I knew this was something big, so it was a part of the strategy to expect a compromise. 

Lori: You were ready to negotiate? 

Ellie: I was in total negotiation mode, thinking, "There’s a middle ground here that’d still be really impactful." But the other Exec Team members jumped on it straight away and said, "Yep, we'll support the full thing," which was really cool.

Lori: Wow, that is cool.

Not long after, the whole team got word of the initiative. The responses ran the gamut.

“I had no words. Right after it was announced in our team huddle, I ugly cried in the corner (for real). It was a much needed time-off.” - Jule, Customer Happiness Rep

“I immediately started worrying about how we’d manage to stay on top of our response times - which are the best and most stable they’ve been in years - with only 50% capacity.  But the reaction from our team when I shared the news made it so clear that we needed to do this. Also, the response from our customer community when we announced the move across social media blew me away completely and gave me literal tears.” - Megan, Head of Customer Experience

“Of course I thought it was nice, but I also didn’t see the point. It’s not like we could go anywhere.” - Sarah, Lead Designer

As for me? I was touched, but a bit irritated. “There is no possible way I can get two weeks worth of work done in one week,” I thought. And that was exactly the point.

Ellie: Not giving notice became really obvious. If we didn't give notice, the team couldn’t double down on work to prepare for what was supposed to be a break. Unless people wanted to pull all nighters, which I don't even think anyone had the energy at that stage, there was no way that they could possibly plan for a super perfect handover. They just couldn't do it. Plus R U OK Day was coming up, so the timing was really perfect.

Lori: Wow, you really thought of everything. You must have felt super confident in this plan.

Ellie: Haha, no.

Michelle enjoys a hike with her pup, Kevan.

The stakes were high

Ellie had a group of nervous wrecks on her hands. Sure, some of us were planning road trips, but some of us were questioning everything. And some of us just didn’t believe this would work. How many times do I have to say it? There was a lot going on!

Ellie: One of the key things for us was making sure that it was equitable, so everybody was going to get a benefit from this, not just some people or some teams. To do that, ownership went back on our Exec team to help get clarity on what priorities might need to move, and then how we could provide the confidence in our leadership and team members to adjust off the back of that.

Before my week off, I scheduled a meeting with my manager to talk about my priorities before my week off. I nervously told her about all of the things I wouldn’t be able to get to. Her response? “Totally fine.”  

Deadlines were going to move. She knew that, the Exec team knew that. No sweating, no panicking. I only had to do what I could and communicate when I’d get to the rest. It was so liberating, but also kind of eerie? It felt like I’d entered some weird workplace version of the Twilight Zone. 

Ellie: I had a few days of feeling a bit sick and pretty worried about whether or not I'd pushed some of our team out of a psychologically safe environment. I didn’t want anyone to feel alone, especially when working remotely. I could see some people thought I’d made life really difficult for them by implementing this initiative.

Lori: Because they had less interaction with their teammates?

Ellie: Well, we were asking them to totally flip their mindset from must do everything to think about what's really important and look after yourself.

Looking after yourself. Turns out it’s not that easy… until it is.

Sarah snuggles up with our design intern, Charlie.

The results

I decided to play Ellie’s game and really commit to logging off – more than I ever had before. I even set my name to “Lori No Work” on our company Slack (that might have been a bit extreme). Next thing I knew, I was relaxing with a capital R. I watched bad movies, took naps outside and even finished the book I’d been “reading” for months. It was ridiculous! Who was I to rest this hard?

I came back and truly felt like I’d regained a part of myself. And I wasn’t the only one.

“It was like somebody coming around for dinner and offering to help you do the dishes, and you say no, and then they offer again. And then you say no, and then they do it anyway. It's quite awkward when they're doing your dishes for you in your own home. But then as soon as they leave, you're really grateful that they did the dishes.” - Vanessa, Head of Brand and Creative

“I was really able to relax on my time off.  I knew no one was expecting anything of me and there wouldn’t be any last minute requests. I still came back with some catching up to do, but it was definitely worth it.” - Michelle, Lifecycle Marketing Manager

“I came back feeling refreshed and energised and super motivated to do amazing work because I know that all my efforts impact our company's capability to do good to more people and our environment.” -Mac, Customer Happiness Team Mentor

Lori: So do you think this whole thing was successful? 

Ellie: Overall, yes, it was successful. That doesn’t mean it’s the perfect solution or that it was perfect for everyone, but the data told us that it was mostly good, which we'll take as a win.

We often lean on qualitative results, as our team is very open with feedback, but we also had some quantitative data that showed those cold, hard facts.

In July, 27% of the team had said it was “harder” to be productive compared to the week before. After the wellness weeks, we saw that number decrease to 13.6% and, our favorite spike, 61% said that their slow week resulted in it being “easier” to be productive. We’d only ever seen the “easier” option get to around 7% so this was great to see. 

62% of our team also said they found it easier to switch off with the rest of the team offline, with almost 86% of our team claiming that they managed to be completely offline the week they had off. This was awesome to see. Our team is often tempted to take a peek at slack or their messages while they’re off but it looks like most managed to get a real break.

Lori: Incredible. If another company wanted to do something like this, what should they know going in?

Ellie: You have to be ok with prioritising. I should also acknowledge that we have the benefit of being a successful business through all the hardship around us right now. Our customers are also incredibly supportive and understanding. There were lots of things at play that helped to make it happen. There will be other companies that maybe can't do exactly what we did. But I think they could look at a scaled back version. Maybe it's a half day off a week where your team finishes early. That's definitely achievable in any business from my opinion. And even just that prompt to rethink meetings and how we're working in priorities. I think those things can be replicated by anyone.

Blaire goes on a solo adventure to Joshua Tree National Park.

A change in mentality

Having a random week off is delightful, but it’s not exactly a sustainable business plan (and I shouldn’t rely on my employer to prioritise my mental health). It all comes back to the same question – when did I become this person who was obsessed with work?

Lori: I keep thinking about how we were all in such a weird headspace before wellness week.

Ellie: The weirdest! A lot of people told me, "No, we've got too much work on. We have to do the work." It was almost that we were robots who just repeated, "We have to do the work, we have to do the work...” The funny thing is, I honestly believe that if we didn't ask the team to take a week off, I still don't think that all of those things would have been achieved. People were tired! People weren't operating at their best, I don't think. It had been a while since I heard somebody say that they thought they'd done their best work.

Lori: So what do we take from this experience? How can we avoid robot syndrome?

Ellie: We have to be careful. We have to be ok with slowing down sometimes, and we have to change our mindset around planning for leave. Sure there is some personal accountability to handover work, but we have to support each other and know that things will not be perfect or seamless when someone’s gone on holiday – especially in a fast paced environment like ours. And that’s ok! We have to make it clear that taking care of you is the best thing you can do for yourself and our business.

It’s honestly pretty wild how much this week off made me rethink my relationship with my job. For the first time in my career, I’m taking a long weekend on my birthday (thank you for offering, but please no gifts).

Lori: I truly was grateful for the time off. It was so impactful and completely changed my disposition at work, and frankly in my life. And I think a lot of people feel that way.

Ellie: Oh that’s great to hear!

Lori: How does it feel to be a hero?

Ellie: Oh god, I’m like the definition of a behind the scenes person, and this was some epic teamwork.

Lori: Ellie! I'm not letting you get out of this. How does it feel that something you did created meaningful change in other people's lives?

Ellie: I feel empowered. I feel like I have a license to try and do more, because it's worth it.