You make substantive points, Tim. Thank you.
"An employee should not experience their time off as a period where his
[her/they] work load is just temporarily buffered until his [her/they]
return, but where colleagues will step in and take care of business."
I take this point seriously and don't wish you to think otherwise. In
theory, I absolutely agree. In practice, sometimes we all face constraints.
There are roughly 300 of us (order of magnitude). Every now and then, there
are not enough of us to go around on everything on a timeline that meets
the legitimate need that you present here. We'll continue to work on this.
But, to clarify, no one ever said it was a "useful practice" nor did anyone
suggest that it was generalized across the org.
What I was wondering about in my previous email and now reiterating in this
one too, are people willing to grant their request: a bit of time and allow
for one person to return to work?
Does that seem like a way to move forward?
Warmly,
/a
On Wed, Jan 25, 2017 at 2:50 PM, Tim Landscheidt <tim(a)tim-landscheidt.de>
wrote:
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
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/
wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
--
"If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it." - Margaret
Fuller
Anna Stillwell
Director of Culture
Wikimedia Foundation
415.806.1536
*www.wikimediafoundation.org <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>*