With this post we would like to receive inputs from members on the current vacation policy and how it should evolve in the future.
What is an RFC?
RFC = Request For Comments
Background:
Initially when the DAO was started, we thought that it was possible for folks to take timeoff whenever they want, however that does not work out very well given the extremely low activity around Christmas+NewYear’s as well as for a few weeks in July/August . Currently the DAO takes 4 weeks as ‘gap weeks’ between seasons. However, this does not align with low activity times in the DAO and some folks think 4 weeks may be insufficient.
Polls:
How many weeks should the DAO have ‘off’-time’ each year?
4 weeks [current standard]
6 weeks
8 weeks
10 weeks
12 weeks
Other [comment below]
None [no off-time]
0voters
Should members receive compensation for ‘off-weeks’?
Yes, all formal ‘off-time’ should be compensated = paid vacations
No = unpaid vacation
Each guild/dept/project should decide for themselves
Other [comment below]
None
0voters
What activities should continue during ‘off-time’ in the DAO?
Basic customer service
Troubleshooting critical issues
Basic Marketing
All of these
Other [comment below]
None
0voters
When should off-time be for Christmas+NewYear’s ?
20th Dec to 5th Jan
First Monday before Christmas to First Sunday after new year’s
Last week of december and first week of Janurary
Other [comment below]
None
0voters
When should off-time be for July/August?
All of July
All of August
15 July - 15 August
Other [comment below]
None [no off-time]
0voters
BanklessDAO was born on May the Fourth. Should this day be declared ‘Bankless Day’?
Yes, and declare it a holiday
Yes, but no holiday
No, but declare it a holiday
None
0voters
How should seasons be structured wrt gap and off weeks?
Seasons should have ‘off-time’ weeks for July/August
Seasons should have ‘off-time’ weeks for Christmas/NewYear’s
There should be atleast ‘one week’ of gap week between seasons
All of these
Other [comment below]
None [no off-time]
0voters
Besides the above common ‘off-time’, if folks want more vacations, then what do we do?
Each guild/dept/project decides internally
Role holders should assign a replacement for any personal vacation time over 1 week
I think an outcome here would be a bDIP for a permanent seasonal schedule that can form around these off times. Ex: Season starts after winter break every year. This would be a formula that could tell us what the seasonal start/end dates are in the year 3781.
Then, we can do some better future planning and changes can be more intentional instead of “let’s ratify a schedule every three months”
I am in favor of each person setting their own schedules and time of engagement with bDAO, as little or as much as IRL and their self sivergien situation allows. No work, no pay. Individuals can acquire and train their own fill in interns and back up replacements if afk for longer than a week. No single person is so important to the bDAO’s sustainability that they need to work 365 and 24/7. We all know that burn out and retention are issues and will become more so as the experiment continues. Consensus rules! GVO and relentless as gap week starts with a forum proposal. Thought it a Twitter joke but alas arrived here to participate.
We need some people working in gap weeks, like the Vacation Role, to continue with marketing and translation Jajaja i love the meme that was around twitter
Interesting question. The argument against longer holiday periods brought forward was the fear that people may not return. Not sure whether that is the case. However, meetings still tend to take place at bDAO during this time. It is only the official activities which are on pause really. In addition it gives everyone a possibility to catch up on other things they did not have time to complete, e.g. projects, documents, proposal drafting etc. With regards to services that need to be maintained during holidays I would trust the respective entities could organise this amongst themselves as with any other task given we are operating in a decentralised fashion throughout.
But to accommodate a longer holiday period my suggestion would be a bit broader:
Switch to trimester seasons
At the end of each trimester two weeks holiday
Start with trimesters from S8 onward.
Advantages:
Instantly cuts down on bureaucracy by 1/4 (i.e. funding proposals)!
The two weeks at the end of the respective semester would fit in nicely with: a kind of belated spring break, summer holidays, Christmas/holiday season.
Trimesters would warrant the extension of holidays to 2 weeks by extending the activity part of such a trimester by 2 weeks at the same time.
Realigns us again with the calender year which is important and helpful for accounting purposes. We were in sync with the calendar year before frogmonkey stepped back I believe.
Things that need clarification:
Mandate of any elected DAO position currently aligned to seasons, i.e. GC, GSE
Thanks @Jengajojo for the push on this. Our dear fren @nonsensetwice has been promoting a version of this for nearly 18 months, and it’s an important convo to have.
I see the word “Policy” and cringe, but I’m def happy to see that the majority of respondents put the onus for implementation directly at the Guild/Project level.
We need to be mindful of how we Governate. Don’t get me wrong, certain workflows demand centralized decision making, but determining when people can rest is not one of them. Guild and teams are smart enough to figure it out on their own. Even more so, our nature demands that they have this autonomy. If Depts can’t figure out coverage, I’d be remiss to also trust them with the basic tasks for which they are responsible.
I’m also into what @senad is saying, and would just add that this is about figuring out a workable calendar. So whether it’s 4-month seasons @Trewkat, trimesters (but let’s get away form the college-age “gap week” and “trimester” nomenclature), the current calendaring/budgeting/seasonal planning we have is pretty bad, so let’s figure out something better
We are talking about and requesting feedback on holidays generally.
In organisations you do so based on hours worked.
The implications of this post is that anyone (regardless of working hours) benefits from the same holiday time. This seems broken to me:
someone working on a project (20-30h+) won’t benefit from holidays
whilst someone in GC (5-15h) will benefit from paid holidays
I’d like to request clarification on holidays relative to worked hours.
On overtime:
Again we’re deciding on it in the ether. Usually you must have a view on the nature of each role via an org structure.
The most critical roles are the ones subject to working during holidays or overtime.
Equally these requirements are usually non-negotiable or dependent on availability and must be part of the recruitment agreements for those roles. With some sort of penalties and role-forfeit procedures if someone fails to comply.
I’d also caution that even with the current 4wks period we still had issues in the past with project funding and general DAO housekeeping.
This whole proposal seems overly focused on the happy path for some contributors.
Is it really net beneficial to the DAO? Would like to see supporting evidence if it is.
Hi @activate-glacier Perhaps we can ask @Jengajojo for some clarity on vacation vs holiday. Since we are a global organization, it doesn’t make sense to base anything around Holidays, as we all celebrate different Holidays.
However, it does make sense to have the seasons on a set schedule.
It’s my reflection based on being in the DAO. I look at meeting attendance, folks replying on time and folks themselves asking for timeoff
Christmas, NewYears are pretty standard for almost all parts of the world. Many contributors are from the west and there are often summer holidays around july/august which results in low activtiy
Many groups independently decide to or not to have holidays even during gap week, in my opinion it is impossible to stop someone from working during holidays/gap weeks etc… While I agree that some groups maybe working more than others, we as a DAO need time to reflect and retrospect on our actions as well as spend time away from screens to maintain a healthy work-life balance. This is the spirit of this post.
This is a very good point and if we were to standardize the seasons and holidays process, we can focus our efforts on running these operations rather than having to agree each time on when seasons start or end. If we can have some consensus on when people want to not work, only then we can design a seasonal flow for when people can work.
I understand - Am I correctly understanding that this isn’t based on Holidays? It is based on low activity times at the DAO?
[quote=“Jengajojo, post:11, topic:5090”]
Christmas, NewYears are pretty standard for almost all parts of the world. Many contributors are from the west and there are often summer holidays around july/august which results in low activtiy
[/quote]I
I don’t agree that we should base vacation times on holidays (such as Christmas and @Icedcool ‘s birthday weeks) - it would seem that implies that we value those holidays with vacation time attached over other holidays - I do not believe this is the case.
I agree with this base principle. My line of thinking leverages the fact that folks need time off and most people are taking time off in these times anyway, so might as well make it official.
Maybe the DAO would want to take inspiration from these practices? Or maybe I am wrong, I just wanted to ask the DAO for it’s opinion.
This this this. If we’re going to change the nature of “work” in general, it makes sense to release traditional views of vacation and time off and create news ways of managing both of those things.
Jajaja i love the meme that was around twitter 