Lara Hogan is a leadership coach and the founder of Wherewithall.
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As more people begin to feel safe to travel, visit family and take extended time off, you’ll begin to receive more out-of-office auto-responses from coworkers whom you really need to talk to ASAP. For many people, this past year was incredibly challenging and traumatizing. Your colleagues genuinely need true time off. That means no emergency calls, no surprise meetings and no returning from their vacation to an enormous pile of work.
By having a plan before someone leaves, the work can keep moving forward and projects can stay on track. But more importantly, after a time where we weren’t able to get away at all, disconnecting deserves to be treated as protected time. Take this opportunity to proactively work with your teammates to reduce surprise and build in a plan to lean on colleagues so you can give people the much-needed break they deserve.
Prep with six questions.
The following questions are a template your coworkers can use when they schedule time off. Partner with them to brainstorm the answers and make sure everyone mentioned has what they need. Ideally, you’re doing this one to two weeks out, but any day is a good day to prepare!
Before [insert coworker’s name] heads out:
1. What needs to be decided?
2. What needs to be communicated or documented, and who are the audiences for those messages?
3. What important documents does this person control access to, and who else should receive edit or view access?
4. What information is documented in shared calendars? (Launch dates, vacation time, adjusted working hours, team meetings, etc.)
5. Who should people contact when they have questions that this person would normally answer?
6. Who should be copied on project or personnel updates in this person’s absence?
With the exception of the first question, each of these action items can be completed asynchronously. You can help your coworker draft a short communications plan about who to contact with different questions or updates; they can make a checklist for sharing documents and calendars. The hardest part is taking the time to think through these questions upfront!
Here’s a pro tip: Be specific about the kinds of questions that should be redirected during this person’s absence, and identify an individual, rather than a team, to contact. Different people are familiar with different subject matters, so being specific will help others get the information they need more quickly. And if someone reaches out to an entire team (instead of an individual), it’s more likely that no one will respond to the inquiry because they’re waiting for someone else to.
Lend your support.
If your colleague is hesitant to delegate work or establish temporary point people for different questions, encourage them to approach this as an opportunity to grow as a leader. Reinforce that leaning on their colleagues for help today will enable them to delegate, teach and hand off work again in the future — which is the only way to continue to level up. You can only say yes to new opportunities if you can successfully hand off the old ones! And, of course, leaning on their colleagues will help strengthen the team’s agility and collaboration overall.
Restate that you want this person to truly be able to disconnect and enjoy their time away. You recognize that it’s been a hard season for everyone, and you want to support this person as they recharge.
Lastly, don’t forget to follow the same steps for your own upcoming time off. Your team will be stronger for it and by modeling the behavior you want to see, you’ll make it even safer to take the time they need.
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