Workomics is closed this week for our summer shutdown. It is one of two we do each year. The other is in December, in that liminal space when the old year is not quite over, and the new one not quite begun. Shutdowns are fully-paid days off, over and above the twenty vacation days each employee receives each year.
A shutdown is very different from individual vacations because everyone is off at the same time. In the lead-up, there is a shared focus on making it to the break. This spring at Workomics was particularly hectic, and our July shutdown was a bright light at the end of the tunnel — something to galvanize and motivate us like little else can. Unlike a week of vacation, there’s no hand-off to over-burdened colleagues, and you don’t return to a full inbox and context to catch up on. The work just stops, for once assuming its proper place in your life: set aside for the people that matter most, for unstructured time to do as you please, for real rest and rejuvenation.
In a client services business, it is not easy to shut down for a full week. It takes advance planning and communication. We choose weeks that tend to be vacation-heavy and less productive anyway. Even so, a closure will sometimes inconvenience clients who have urgent timelines that clash with our planned downtime. That’s why, as much as you plan and communicate, you also need conviction: this is not open-heart surgery, and the corporate deadlines can wait; the value we offer outweighs the temporary inconvenience of a week away; the rest and downtime is in fact integral to that value, and to our ability to sustain it in the long run.
It’s not perfect, either. Most of the team will be disconnected for most of the week. But a couple of people will take a meeting to keep a critical deliverable moving forward. Someone else will monitor inboxes to be ready for research that starts next week. Others will (ahem) finish up their newsletter. But the concessions are small ones, made smaller because there are no new assignments piling up, no last-minute meetings dropping into your calendar. During a shutdown week, for once it feels possible to actually get ahead.
The secret ingredient is the coordination. We have one client who also shuts down for this first week, and it’s magic. From the beginning of the year, every project is planned with the understanding that everything will pause for the first week of July. It’s actually much easier and more efficient compared to working around the key stakeholders’ interwoven vacations the rest of the year. The only downside is that it’s only one client and only one week. How much better would it be if it were all the clients for two or even three weeks?
Human beings are not designed to work at full speed, without a break. We are healthier, happier, and more productive when we rest. Alas, capitalism will take every available hour, if you let it. Someone has to confine it — draw a box around the time work can have vs. time it cannot. Drawing those lines is hardest when it falls to the individual, protecting their own vacation and drawing boundaries around their own off-hours. It’s much easier when an organization sets a limit for everyone. Now, you are not protecting vacation time just for you, but for the collective. It feels less open to debate. And it is easier still if it can happen on an even larger scale: a whole industry, or even a whole country. As ever, the Nordics got there first — the whole country of Norway shuts down for three weeks each July.
If it sounds idyllic, that’s probably because it’s ideal. If anyone is spearheading a movement for a North American equivalent, please sign me up.
Workomics Staff Picks
Some links from the team this month:
With increasing time spent in front of screens, employers like Deloitte have started to offer subsidized Lego and puzzles as part of their employee wellbeing program. We love the inclusion of tangible problem-solving. And also, those Lego sets ain’t cheap.
As more companies send employees back to the office 4+ days a week, workplace biohacking becomes a more relevant trend. This Worklife article runs down how everything from carbon dioxide levels to light quality can affect productivity, and how companies are increasingly using technology to achieve optimal environments.
In the medical realm, we were super interested to read about the early success of off-the-shelf stem cell therapy for treating diabetes. When implanted in patients, the manufactured cells started sensing glucose and secreting hormones almost instantly, allowing patients to stop taking insulin. What an exciting scientific development!
Happy summer!
In comradeship,
S.