Holiday and Sickness

When booking time off for either holiday or sickness it is your responsibility to follow these principles.

Guiding Principles

• Be as thoughtful for your team and clients as possible by planning as far in advance as you can.
• Good communication with your line manager and your team is essential.
• Where possible, check if others in your team are away at the same time and how that may impact team performance.
• Be proactive and find out if there is important work being scheduled for the time you want off such as a new client launch, a specific sporting event, or a new feature release.
• Think about how you can mitigate disruption while you are away, including detailed handover notes with clear actions and people responsible.

Things to Think About

As a small but growing team, there are certain functions where we need a minimum number of people working and therefore may not be able to authorise every holiday request. For example:

• If you are in a team of 3 then no more than 1 person can be off at any given time.
• If you are in a team of 4 then no more than 2 people can be off at any given time.
• We rely heavily on engineering to service our clients so managers and team leads should not be off at the same time unless unavoidable.
• There are instances when certain people across teams should also not be off at the same time. This is down to your line manager's discretion and depends on client needs/circumstances.

For the avoidance of doubt, in this instance "a team" could be Backend, Frontend, iOS, Android, QA, and so on, not Engineering as a whole.

How to Book Off Holiday or Sickness

• Please follow the guiding principles before requesting time off.
• Communicate with your line manager stating that you require time off for particular dates and confirm there is suitable cover.
• If your line manager is satisfied then you can book the time off in HiBob.
• Once confirmed, your line manager will post in a relevant channel so your team has visibility and a discussion can be had regarding a handover if necessary.
• With sickness, we understand that the above may not always be possible, so simply communicate in your team Slack channel as early as you can depending on your circumstances.

For important dates such as Christmas, holiday requests should be submitted as early as possible (end of Q3) as many clients have sporting events happening.

How to Create a Good Handover

When creating a holiday handover, follow the guiding principles for communication, including making sure the reader does not need to do the work. A good handover should include:

• A Confluence page in the Holiday Handovers section
• Confirmation of the dates you will be on leave
• Availability during that period if applicable
• Contact details if something urgent arises
• A well-structured list of jobs to be done in your absence, with logical segmentation such as by client, feature, or date, and tagging the person who will be responsible in your absence
• Confirmation that you have spoken to the person responsible beforehand
• Links to anything referenced that may be important to the task
• Clear yet concise context
• If tasks are also stored in another tool, such as Airtable, ensure they are updated to reflect the new owner and accurate due dates
• For external meetings where you are expected, communicate with the client if necessary or ensure there is a replacement to lead the meeting
• Make sure you have thought about BAU items as well, for example if you are the organiser of a meeting then ownership may need to be transferred, or if you usually take notes then confirm a replacement and include it in the holiday handover document

A well-thought-out holiday handover goes a long way toward mitigating confusion and avoidable stress.