Anna Stillwell <astillwell(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
[…]
I also hear that the pause on the interactive work is
temporary. I’ve heard
them request time. I am comfortable granting that request, but no one is
required to agree with me. They’ve also said that the person with the most
information is on vacation. As someone who has seen employees go through
considerable stress in the last years, the entire executive team is working
to establish some cultural standards around supporting vacations. We want
people here to feel comfortable taking proper vacations and sometimes that
can even need to happen in a crisis. People often plan their vacations well
in advance and may not know that something tricky will come up. Just so you
understand one bias I bring to this conversation.
[…]
I concur with DJ in his initial mail that this is not a use-
ful practice, and I doubt very much that it relieves employ-
ees' stress. It conveys the organizational expectation that
employees are SPOFs without any backup. An employee should
not experience their time off as a period where his work
load is just temporarily buffered until his return, but
where colleagues will step in and take care of business.
Especially such a major decision like "pausing" a team
should not depend on the inner thoughts of one employee, but
be backed and explainable by others.
Tim