Why taking good holidays is good practice

Back when I was a fairly recent graduate I received one of the best pieces of advice I've ever received.  The project was having some delivery pressures and I was seen as crucial to one of the key parts.  As a result my manager was putting pressure on me to cancel my holiday (two weeks of Windsurfing bliss in the Med with friends) with a promise that the company would cover the costs.  I was called into the BIG boss' office with the full expectation that he would put the screws on further and in my head I had a list of additional demands.

"Steve, I've heard that XXX [name redacted] wants you to cancel your holiday"
"Yes, we've got to get the release out and I'm the one who knows most about resolving issues in the team"
"Don't"

This kind of stumped me so I sat there a bit quiet, and here came the best advice ever

"If you cancel this holiday then all anyone will remember is that they can make you cancel holidays, they won't actually appreciate it.  If you go on holiday and it all collapses all everyone will remember is that it collapsed without you, if it goes badly or much harder because you aren't there they will remember that, and if its OK without you then hopefully you have enough talent to not insist that the universe revolves around you.  Go on holiday, don't be contactable and remember that now more senior folks know about you because you didn't cancel your holiday."

Its a mantra I've lived by.  Take your holidays, plan to take them, and take them PROPERLY.  That means

1. Change your password before leaving and DON'T update it on any mobile devices
2. Your work laptop does NOT travel on holiday with you
3. You don't do conference calls, standups, "just 30 minutes a day" or any other nonsense.

Since I've become a manager I think this is more important.  If I can't manage and succession plan to the level that the universe doesn't collapse while I'm away then what sort of manager am I?  I actually look very badly on folks who don't take holidays properly as they risking promoting a "macho hero" culture rather than a decent work/life balance culture.  If you don't recharge your batteries properly, spend proper time with your family then really, what is the point?

Planning for holidays is a sign of good planning, requiring people to cancel holidays is a sign of bad planning.  Requiring yourself to cancel holidays is a sign of extremely bad planning and bad succession management.

If you are so bad a manager that your team can't cope for 2 weeks without you, then you need to look at how you are developing your next level.  If you are so scared that people won't "miss" you when you are out of the office then you really need to check yourself and look at your career ambitions and direction.

Taking a good holiday (vacation for my American colleagues) is one of the key reasons WHY we work, explore the world, meet new people, do new things, RELAX. 

Back to the story at the top, I came back after the holiday to see issues lists and problems, it took 4 days of hard work to get us back to level and everyone saw me as the hero.  Had I cancelled my holiday none of the management team would have known how crucial I was to the team's success, because of the holiday I was rapidly promoted into a new role.  As a developer taking that holiday led directly to people appreciating much more what I did for the team.

These days a key success factor for my team is how they cope brilliantly when I'm not there, I'm not worried that this means I'm irrelevant, it means that as we grow and take on new challenges my leadership team is able to grow and develop and take those challenges on, leaving me free to work on what is next.

Good holidays are good practice.

The importance of being absent

For the first time in several years I only had a one week summer holiday, now admittedly this was because I also had one week in Paris about a month ago so it isn't too tough. During the week away I was completely off from work this means

• No work phone
• No checking email (didn't even take the security card so I couldn't do web access)
• No contact at all

It was a great break, although the weather was a bit crap. Coming back I have "quite" a lot of emails, only 250 as its August. These break down into broadly 4 groups

1. Circular & email lists - standards bodies, HR and that sort of thing. No issues here
2. Urgent requests for information - only one of these is now within time and they've managed to get the information from elsewhere while I was away
3. Urgent requests for my feedback - about 40 of these, 38 appear to be not as urgent as the original email said as they've then followed up the out-of-office with a "when you get back", 1 has expired and the other one I'm doing this morning
4. Problems that went away

Its the last group that are the ones that would have killed the holiday. There are only a few (about 6) but they all follow the same pattern

1. Urgent email asking for help
2. Email sent cc'ing in others asking for how to contact me
3. Alternative resolution suggested
4. End of thread

Now a few of these are now in my inbox and I'll deal with them. But its much better to deal with them after a week by the sea relaxing (if having two young kids can be described as relaxing) with me in a good frame of mind than doing it remotely, being annoyed and having an annoyed family. It also has the added benefit of having flagged up on high that I'm critical to some important things (if I'd done the work on my holiday it wouldn't have been so visible) and that I'm controlling my own time.

The reason I bring this up is that too often in IT people burn themselves up with a mistaken view that working on holiday somehow makes you more valuable. It doesn't, it makes you an idiot and sets the expectations of others that you will do exactly what they ask, no matter how unreasonable it is. Holidays are there to be taken, its your right to take them and a decent company should be more than happy for you to take them as it makes sure you are more productive. The same goes for weekends, evenings and nights. I work late quite a lot, but only when I'm project managing or powerpoint/word writing. Coding means being fresh which means getting in the sleep.

If you work through your holiday then you are basically just saying that your life is less important to you than what work wants you to do. Does this mean you are more likely to get a pay rise? No. Want to know why?

Well first off your working in the holiday won't be visibile, if you get the work done then you'll get a pat on the head but nothing more. If it goes wrong you'll still get it in the neck and be blamed back at base "We are still waiting on George to deliver" and you can bet that the rider of "because he is currently trekking in Peru and only has a pigeons for communication" won't be added. This means that you don't get visibile credit and you do get visibile issues.

Secondly you are covering up for someone elses problem. Unless you have buggered up, in which case it is your fault, then the odds are someone else has made an error of either planning or execution which means they need your help to dig them out of the hole. If this is the PM on a project then you can bet they will take the credit and won't like to be reminded of their error.

Thirdly you are valuing your time cheaply. Why give a big pay-rise to someone who works 365 days a year already? Its not like they can do more.

I was told something in pretty much my first job when I was put under-pressure to cancel a holiday. The PM raised the issue up to the director that I wasn't "co-operating" and he summoned me to his office and said

Take your holidays and make sure we can't contact you. If it screws while you are away up we might shout, but we'll remember that only you could fix it.

Its a message that has served me well. When I've been asked to work weekends I've asked for compensation, and got it. When I've been asked to cancel holidays I've told people to go hang, although on one occasion I did agree to do 3 days while on holiday, the company then paid for all two weeks and I did the work on the flight out there.

My point is this. Keeping in contact doesn't make you more important, it makes you more of a fool. It won't get you the rewards and it certainly won't get you the recognition.

When you take a break, plan for the break, make sure you have done everything that you should have done and everything that you are responsible for. Then get the hell out of there. Whenever a PM complained to me about people being on holiday being an issue I saw it as their problem and their fault for not planning and noted down the people who were the "issue" as being the people to reward.

Ditch the phone, ditch the email, ditch the contact. Kick back and relax. You'll feel better and others will feel better towards you now that they know they can't push you around so much.

Technorati Tags: SOA, Service Architecture