Dahlia Season Consulting

Leadership Team: “We have to get rid of the unlimited PTO policy. Engineer X is taking too much time off.”

I look at the statistics. It turns out Engineer X was taking more time off than many. However, there were several other engineers who had taken significantly more time off than Engineer X.

Me:  “Did Engineer Y or Engineer Z take too much time off?”

Leadership Team: “No, those other engineers are fine.”

Me: “Well, both of those engineers took more time off than X, so what is really the issue?” 

Leadership Team: says nothing

Me: “When Engineer X is working, is their work not up to our standards?”

I see the light bulbs turning on. 

The problem wasn’t the PTO policy, rather that there was an engineer who wasn’t performing to expectations. 

It helps to see the whole of a system, to ask the questions. Sometimes you have to dig to get to the root problem. Even if handling the core problem is messier than simply changing a blanket policy and hoping that things will get better.