Our Philosophy

We have unlimited holidays at Awell. The time off is paid and does not require the upfront approval of the manager. We all should take holidays⛱!

🧬 Our culture

We have a culture of autonomy therefore we are the ones responsible for enjoying our holidays and organizing our work so when we decide to enjoy them, it does not have a negative impact on our colleagues or the company.
Autonomy does not mean absolute freedom to do what we want. We all work together toward a common goal and are dependent on each other, and every action and decision we make is about building trust in each other.

🎗️ Accountability

We are able to make our own decisions about our holidays and this kind of ownership is inherently connected with accountabilities. We must:

Make judgment calls about when is the best time to leave on holiday, taking into account the following:
1. Business-critical initiatives we are involved in and established delivery timelines.
2. Time off our teammates are taking, therefore coordinate internally.
3. Client agreements and deadlines we have established with them.
Make sure our work is covered when we are on leave:
1. For example, we prep handover, we make sure somebody else can drive critical initiatives when me or you, are away.
2. We do not delay business critical stuff because we are away.
3. We check with the rest of the team who goes on holiday when in order to ensure critical business areas are covered.
4. In case of conflict, we work it out within the team. We all depend on each other and cannot organize our holidays in a vacuum (for example asking “Can we afford that 50% of the team is away at the same time in this month's context?” etc.)

In summary, we trust that everybody knows when is the best time to leave for holidays, and will take time off in the context of the business while coordinating with the wider team.

🖋 Holiday know-how

Please be proactive and give information in advance to your team members
Please do discuss holidays as a team ( coordinate with each other)
Please fill in your planned holidays in Holidays at Awell Health. We use this to collaborate and for compliance, especially in the case of employees on employment contracts (filling those holidays here does not mean you do not have to proactively let others know that you do plan time off, especially longer ones)

Handovers

As we are operating as a remote team, it's more important than non-remote teams to make sure your teammates have the necessary context when you are away (on holiday).

We all work hard, especially right before taking some time off, but leaving without making sure that context and next steps are clear potentially slows down the whole company. This means you have to prioritize a proper handover right before you leave (and thus deprioritize other stuff). Don't assume others have the context.

Why?