PTO = Paid Time On?

It’s time to rethink our time off policies.

In the post-pandemic world, we’re seeing major shifts in employee-employer relationships, generational divides in the workforce, and enormous rates of burnout. In order to stabilize our companies and our workforce, the standard of expectations for how employees show up needs to change — but probably not in the way you think.

10 years ago, I was everyone’s description of a workaholic. I would take calls and have my work laptop open on my parents’ couch at Thanksgiving. I took calls at bizarre hours and woke up early and pulled all-nighters for work deadlines. I’m a lifelong entrepreneur — I’m from San Francisco, I grew up in and lived and breathed the atmosphere of the startup and tech world. I was happy to join in the competition of who could pull the longest days, the longest weeks, use the least vacation time, who could put work at the top of their list of priorities the longest.

It’s been a long time since I was willing to work like that — and more people are ditching my old mindset by the day. Where it was once common practice to hear someone say “of course, I’m always on — call me anytime,” we are now beginning to see a shift toward stronger boundaries around work — while in the US, we may not have gone as far as some other countries who formally codified a Right to Disconnect, employees are beginning to push…