Rest Is Not a Reward: Advaita Naidoo on Changing Leave Culture for Good

[00:00:00] Debbie Goodman: Welcome back to On Work and Revolution, where we talk about what’s shaking up in the world of work. I’m your host, Debbie Goodman. I’m CEO of Jack Hammer Global, a global group, our executive search and leadership coaching companies, and for those of you who don’t know Jack Hammer, we are Africa’s largest executive search boutique.

We find leaders for organizations in about 24 countries on the continent. I also coach CEOs all over the world and on any given day, I am speaking to leaders on about four different continents. My mission with all of my work is to help leaders and companies to create amazing workplaces so that everyone can have a really happy, healthy work life.

And I mean, you can call me an idealist, but that’s really, really my thing. Okay. Today I am joined by my colleague and returning guest Advaita Naidu MD of Jack Hammer Africa, who is my co-conspirator and passionate advocate for reshaping workplace norms. Hi.

[00:01:04] Advaita Naidoo: Hello, Debbie, I think I today I’m gonna be called your Co-idealist.

[00:01:08] Debbie Goodman: Okay, let’s do it. Alright, so today’s yes.

[00:01:11] Advaita Naidoo: I was gonna say, I think we’ve missed a trick by not doing this recording from the beach, but then again, maybe that will give the idea that we’re always on wherever we are and which is a bit contrary to the message we wanna land here.

[00:01:22] Debbie Goodman: Okay. Plus, in Cape Town, I don’t think it’s beach weather, right.

[00:01:26] Advaita Naidoo: Fair. Okay.

[00:01:27] Debbie Goodman: Okay, it’s, I’m in Manhattan Beach. It is completely overcast and cloudy, so no beach today. alright, so today’s episode is called Take the Effing Break. And as you know, it is my, I love cursing, but I’m trying to be a little bit polite with this.

The title is deliberate because we’re talking about leave and why it’s actually such a fraught issue. And, and in my view, while leave is actually a cultural issue, it’s not an admin or policy one. So, regardless of what is written on paper, regardless of the policies, whether or not people actually take their leave, how they take it, how they feel about it, in my view, that’s all about culture.

 I mean, what’s your take?

[00:02:13] Advaita Naidoo: Agreed. I think, in a lot of organizations and for a lot of people, leave becomes a grudge for the people taking it, it becomes a grudge for their families if when you are having time out, you are constantly checking in on your emails and not really letting go of the office. So it has become hypersensitive in personal lives and work lives. So I’m really excited to unpack the cultural issues.

[00:02:39] Debbie Goodman: Okay. So, whether or not people actually take their leave and then how they feel about it when they’re actually on leave, I think is primarily dependent, really on their manager. Their manager and their peers, and whether people are actually supported when they unplug. Are you made to feel guilty for the fact that you’re taking leave while everybody else is working?

And is this considered like some extra special benefit or perk versus a really important part of how you stay healthy and productive and engaged at work?

[00:03:18] Advaita Naidoo: Exactly. And I think another question to ask there is, do your colleagues begrudge you your time out? Do they resent needing to pick up the slack for you a little bit when you are taking your time out? And that really goes back again to the cultural issue. So it’s your line manager, do they turn it into a chore in the office? And your colleagues, when they say goodbye to you. What’s their attitude really?

[00:03:40] Debbie Goodman: Right. Okay. I wanna dig straight into this relatively new-ish idea of unlimited leave, which sounds extremely progressive. it’s something that I think arose in the tech world. Perhaps in the US may have been, prominent elsewhere. But I think, primarily, considered to be a benefit that was offered to people who, particularly in startup, culture or in organizations where they were really trying to make it sound attractive to join an organization.

They say, you know something, you can take unlimited time off. But actually it sounds progressive, but it results in people taking less time off.

[00:04:22] Advaita Naidoo: It does, and I also just wanna call out the genesis of it. Yes. It is sold as an employee value proposition for a lot of companies that maybe would not have been able to offer big salaries or, other things that larger companies could have offered. But there’s also something about a company’s benefit here of not having unused leave as a balance sheet liability.

So yes, it sounds very progressive, but there are certain instances where it is really for the company’s benefit. And again, is it a perk in practice? Are people actually taking their leave? Because if it’s another noose around someone’s corporate neck, it really may as well not exist.

[00:04:59] Debbie Goodman: Ah, you cynic.

[00:05:04] Advaita Naidoo: I thought I was the co idealist today, but I am just calling out inconsistencies.

[00:05:09] Debbie Goodman: Okay. A hundred percent. And I, I agree with you by the way, there’s the stat, that studies actually show that in companies with unlimited leave, employees apparently take fewer days than with traditional policies where it’s like you get two weeks or whatever it

[00:05:24] Advaita Naidoo: What did I say, right?

[00:05:27] Debbie Goodman: Okay, alright, so in theory, at Jack Hammer, we also have an unlimited leave policy, and so I want to check in with ourselves, whether we are walking the talk.

 So yes, we have, when somebody signs a contract of employment with Jack Hammer, there are formal days leave, you get X number of days. I can’t remember what they are. And I can’t remember what they are because I don’t monitor them. The deal is that you take leave when you want, as long as your deliverables are met,

[00:05:58] Advaita Naidoo: Well, yes. Yes. However, we have had to get a little bit more structured to make sure that delivery is still seamless for everyone concerned. So yes, you take leave, but if you want to take a longer block of leave, there are a few more steps that you need to clear, but they’re not onerous. So you do need to give sufficient notice. You do need to make sure that there is good handover. So I don’t want anyone to think that it’s, oh, this really airy fairy, laissez-faire, kind of thing that works because we’re a smaller environment. That’s not it at all. We have been very deliberate and very intentional about how we’ve put this policy together so that it actually works and that people feel comfortable to take the leave, rather than just having it as a pie in the sky thing that they maybe will do in three years time.

[00:06:47] Debbie Goodman: Okay. Well thanks for, talking about the fact that there is some clear structure around that. I guess you’re the one who handles that versus me, so thank you for that too. Um, I just wanna talk about like where, So I, many years ago, first of all, I used to be a classified workaholic, until I had my kids. And then I was forced to be a little bit more balanced in how I worked. But I also started to realize that I was going through these periodic cycles of working so intensely and then falling down. Fortunately, I’m pretty robust. I could take a, you know, a literally a long weekend and revive myself and.

No, that’s not a badge of honour at all. I was actually being, it was very unhealthy actually. But I started to realize that I’d have the, actually take a long weekend and come back feeling fired up, inspired. I’d usually have had some great ideas, some little bit of inspiration, while I’d had time off and then ready to go the next, the next a hundred yards. And thought to myself, I really need to make sure that we have this idea around a long weekend break. Well, I thought that was gonna be a good idea every quarter. I said Every quarter everybody needs to take a long weekend off. Organize it, preferably not all at the same time. And, we sort of implemented it, but I think not very well at the beginning because I realized after a while people weren’t actually taking their long weekends.

[00:08:11] Advaita Naidoo: So I agree. I think it, it was again, one of those ideas that was nice in practice, but to come back to the point about it being a cultural issue, it is now very much more entrenched to the point that we don’t have to monitor whether people are taking their long weekend breaks because everybody is self-managed. Their deliverables are met. And so we know that in addition to the unlimited leave and the safety rails around that, people are taking off the sporadic days that they need. They are taking their long weekend break. They’re taking mental health breaks when they need to. They’re letting us know that they’re checking out for the next day or so because they need to regroup, they need to take a break.

And so that’s when you know that the system is working. When people feel comfortable enough to mention it.

[00:09:00] Debbie Goodman: Yeah, I do notice because I just see an email coming in from somebody from the team to say, Hey, I’m taking tomorrow off. And I have no idea whether they kind of requested it or they’re just at the point where they’ve gone, you know, this is due to me. I feel I need it, and my deliverables are met. And so I never question it, I’m assuming because the system is, um, the system sounds very systematized. It’s not really, but because we have now cultivated a culture where people feel comfortable to take those days without necessarily asking for permission, and nobody ever thinks that they’re taking it for granted.

[00:09:33] Advaita Naidoo: Exactly. But we will receive a communication as a courtesy because we want to know where everyone is and that everyone’s okay. So again, it’s not asking for permission and it’s not asking for forgiveness. It’s, I’m just letting you know that this is happening.

[00:09:47] Debbie Goodman: Okay, so now what about, there’s an assumption that people take leave when there’s the ad hoc days when there’s like an emergency or a family crisis or God forbid, something, somebody died or something like that. But what about, and everybody accepts that, and we roll with it. what about the idea that we shouldn’t just be taking leave for the shitty days. We should be taking leave for the celebratory ones. I mean, I’ve just had a graduation. My, um, my oldest daughter has just graduated as of yesterday, and this has been the most intense week of juggling graduation things. I was not prepared for it. It’s my first high school graduation.

[00:10:23] Advaita Naidoo: Sure.

[00:10:24] Debbie Goodman: And there were a ton of things going on I could really have done with a work break. It was very stressful, just mostly because there were so many extra things piled in through the day. And it would be nice if, I had given myself the day off yesterday to say, no work. We are just gonna focus on this beautiful celebration that’s happening. but I don’t know that celebratory days are given as much credence as the emergency ones.

[00:10:47] Advaita Naidoo: I mean, I think we just notice the emergency ones a little bit more because they are unexpected. But the celebration days are also taken. We’ve had people say, well, my friend’s getting married on a Friday, which is unusual, so I. We are taking the long weekend off. There have been times where, I mean, I have three children, they are children Throughout this team, we’re going to watch cricket matches, which are not huge, big events, but those are moments of joy that we would be sad to miss. On a Friday afternoon during the summer I’m always at water polo games, so it’s not that we don’t, um, celebrate the leave for celebrations, it’s just those tend to be a little bit more planned and a little bit more expected, so we don’t have to focus on them as much.

[00:11:30] Debbie Goodman: That is true. Okay, so now we’re, we are sounding like the model children for work leave.

[00:11:36] Advaita Naidoo: My work here is done.

[00:11:38] Debbie Goodman: Okay. No, no. Hold a second. I’ve gotta ask a serious question now, which is, how am I as a leader modelling what taking leave looks like? And the reason I ask that is because I truly believe that, if we’re talking about leave as a cultural issue, it really does depend on what are the leaders doing and, how are they modelling leave?

And I think I’m a actually pretty poor modeler because, almost always, when I take leave, I almost always still do some work and I, that’s my choice. I hate congested inboxes. It makes me feel. I don’t know, terribly chaotic. I will sometimes and occasionally do little bits of admin. I do like to use my holiday times for a bit of thinking.

So, sometimes people will be getting emails from me while I’m supposed to be on holiday. So actually now that I’m saying that, I think I’m actually not very good modeler of leave.

[00:12:33] Advaita Naidoo: I think you’re a very good modeler of doing what works for you. And the rest of us feel very comfortable to ignore your emails that you send on holiday because we are not gonna act on them until you get back. So that’s the first thing, and so the system still works for us, and I think the rest of us find ways to make it work for us as well, because when I’m on leave, I do tend to check out a little bit more at work.

However, on the flip side, my family will also notice that I am checking my emails ’cause I too don’t want the congested inbox. So that’s so to manage my own anxiety so that when I come back it is as I need it to be. So again, it’s making it work for you. I would be far more anxious on my holiday if I saw 30 emails piling up as I’m sure you would be.

[00:13:23] Debbie Goodman: I mean, isn’t that a little bit, the fact that we have so much anxiety around these congested inboxes, even when we’re on leave. I think that’s not a sign of particularly good health actually. So let’s just put a pin in that. We might need to take this offline.

[00:13:36] Advaita Naidoo: Damning evidence.

[00:13:37] Debbie Goodman: Yeah, yeah. Okay. We need to reexamine that. and I think this is a real challenge. I mean, the fact is we can rationalize it and we can make excuses for it, but we may be talking about wanting to be, modelling good leave policies and making sure that everybody feels good about taking leave. But if they’re also still always on, if they are still actually checking email because the idea of, congested inbox is so revolting, then there is a big problem with that.

And, that’s actually a really good segue into the conversation I wanna have around burnout because burnout is a real thing. We saw it particularly become, you know, really mushroomed as something companies were paying attention to, during, the pandemic because mental health became such a big issue and it didn’t go away.

Okay. We are just not talking about it necessarily as much as we were talking about it, and I believe that the leave needed, if someone is actually being diagnosed with burnout is different to a long weekend. I’m not sure if you, I read something the World Health Organization has actually defined burnout as, an occupational syndrome, which has real symptoms and I think can be classified as a, an equal to, a depression as a clinical diagnosis.

[00:14:58] Advaita Naidoo: I mean, that’s significant. And you’re right, companies aren’t speaking about it as much anymore. I think a lot of companies thought they were going to solve that with the return to office mandates because the lines became blurred when people were working from home. And that’s true to a certain extent because we were working longer hours.

It was more difficult to unplug. But I think what has actually happened is the commute’s been added back in, the workload hasn’t really been reduced. The expectations are as high as they ever were, but this is now just not openly talked about anymore.

[00:15:29] Debbie Goodman: The point being that burnout is real. It hasn’t gone away and it is not solved with a long weekend or an extra Friday, or a two day break. That is not the solution. You actually need an extended break for a burnout diagnosis.

[00:15:45] Advaita Naidoo: Have you ever witnessed somebody being on the precipice or being burnt out and then managing to come back? What? What did that solution look like?

[00:15:55] Debbie Goodman: So I was actually chatting to somebody yesterday, who shared with me a little bit about her, her burnout experience. She actually, ultimately decided to take an extended break, and it took her actually more than a year to finally, yeah, to finally recover and recuperate. So that was extreme. Um, but the truth of it, and she had the luxury of being able to actually take the proper time off to regain her, first of all, to take time to decompress from the programming

 and then, you know, actually, recover. I have seen other people, stay in this like middling meh sort of just survival state for very, very long time. And they just, they sort of live in a state of just on the precipice Of, a real burnout collapse, because they don’t take proper breaks out.

 and honestly, I’ve seen people who’ve had severe burnout. the only solution for that is like a sabbatical type thing where you take proper three months or whatever it is, maybe longer timeout.

[00:17:00] Advaita Naidoo: Well, what a great segue that is in into, again, how Jack Hammer is getting it right, because we do sabbaticals here and they’re pre-emptive sabbaticals because nobody who has taken a sabbatical here has done so because they were burnt out. They wanted to prevent that situation arising.

[00:17:22] Debbie Goodman: We have planned this ahead of time as one would plan almost like a maternity leave. And, because let’s face it, maternity leave is not leave.

[00:17:34] Advaita Naidoo: That’s exactly it, and that’s the reasoning that I wanted to use. What people don’t know is that in the runup to us implementing that as a formal benefit and a perk at Jack Hammer, we spoke to a number of clients and HR directors in our networks to talk about how one might bring this about and the considerations.

And by and large, the response was this is gonna be impossible or, oh, well if, if it works out for you, let us know how it works out, because this sounds great, but we don’t know how it would come about. But the thing that I always came back to was if we can make plans for people to go on medical leave or we can make a plan for somebody to go on maternity leave and we arrange that kind of cover, why wouldn’t we apply that same rationale to a sabbatical? And the assumption is that, well, a sabbatical is by choice. Well, sure it’s by choice, but then we can also choose to plan around it.

[00:18:32] Debbie Goodman: Yeah. Yeah. So I must say I, I was really proud of that, example and it was pre-emptive. It was requested. We made it work. It’s, yes. Okay. Let’s be honest. It’s kind of inconvenient.

[00:18:44] Advaita Naidoo: Sure.

[00:18:45] Debbie Goodman: We, a key person is out of the workplace. But the opportunity for making sure that people continue to be happy and healthy in not just their work, but in their whole lives.

The advantage of that, it’s like a no brainer as far as I’m concerned. I think bigger companies are afraid of either people taking advantage of this or goodness, I don’t know, it getting outta hand in some way. Perhaps the, you know, perhaps we can do, uh, or small companies can do things, differently to large organizations. But I would challenge, large organizations to, think about how they might also, offer, flexibility and benefits like this ’cause it’s such a win for everybody.

[00:19:26] Advaita Naidoo: Exactly. I agree that there’s a certain amount of agility in a smaller organization, but that doesn’t preclude a larger organization from finding some sort of solution that works in their environment.

[00:19:37] Debbie Goodman: Okay. I wanna talk about AI. AI as it relates to productivity, the enhancement of productivity, and how this may or may not relate to leave or time out. Okay. So I’ve recently read a UK study that was done on I think 40,000 workers that show that people using AI saved workers 26 minutes per day, which equated to approximately two weeks per year, which is kind of significant,

[00:20:12] Advaita Naidoo: I mean, that’s a whole leave period right there.

[00:20:15] Debbie Goodman: I know. And so I was thinking to myself, okay, so with this time saving is the expectation. And ’cause that’s the whole, the promise of AI just at its most fundamental level is enhanced productivity. And so now with this, productivity or this time saving that apparently everybody’s gonna have, are we expected to work more or do we get the timeout, is it like an incentive if you use AI and you, it makes your work quicker, are you incentivized to have the time that you can then use for yourself? Just a question.

[00:20:49] Advaita Naidoo: Oh, what an existential question. You idealist you. I mean, of course you’re expected to work more ’cause capitalism will always wins.

[00:20:58] Debbie Goodman: Oh, you Goddamn cynic. Okay. so I, I think that this may be something that organizations are already starting to wrestle with, because what is the incentive for people to become more productive, whether they use AI or any other tool, quite frankly, if their jobs are outcome-based and delivery based, then sure, let’s be as quick and efficient as we possibly can.

If their jobs are a bit time-based and it’s about putting your bum on that seat for the required number of hours, and then the productivity just leads to them having to do more work in the available time. I am just not so sure about that, so I’m gonna leave that question up in the air. AI is just, a too much of a big question in itself and causing me a lot of hassle in my mental hours and my mental health.

So, All right. We are running out of time, so I wanna talk about our recommendations ’cause we are clearly the bastion of, Great leave policies. Okay, listeners, we’re, we, we are doing this a bit tongue in cheek. We’ve got our problems too, but we do take leave quite seriously.

Okay. Let’s talk about recommendations for ourselves and others. What should healthy leave policies look like? okay. You go.

[00:22:12] Advaita Naidoo: look, I think all countries have their statutory minimums, when it comes to leave, but all companies could also look at whether that is appropriate for their organization, depending on the intensity of the work and the level of delivery and output that is required. And there is no reason why they shouldn’t flex that upwards, where appropriate, but also make sure that people are taking their leave.

If you’re not able to offer them unlimited leave and you don’t necessarily want to pay out for leave, make sure that people actually take their leave so that they do come back happier and more productive,

[00:22:45] Debbie Goodman: Look, I think in some organizations, people are really taking their leave. So I, there’s a range around that. my recommendation is around leave mentorship. I guess this is a note to self, but around managers actually modelling healthy leave behaviour. A, taking the leave, B, making sure that people feel good about it, that they’re not being bothered while they are away, that they’re not being expected to also check in while they’re away, that there’s proper handover, that they can actually take the proper time out, that their managers aren’t sending them emails in the middle of their leave. Yes, so as I said, note to self.

[00:23:21] Advaita Naidoo: Okay, so leave mentorship. I think we should copyright that ’cause that’s a, that’s a good catchphrase. and then, you know, like we do at Jack Hammer celebration and rest are valid reasons to take time off. You do not just need to carve some time out for the emergencies celebration time, prioritize it.

[00:23:41] Debbie Goodman: Right. Normalizing celebrations. okay. And then my last one would be as an encouragement to think about. Really, enabling people to take slightly more extended breaks. You can call them sabbatical, but I’d like to call it extended breaks, and that should be for whatever they need and want. Volunteering time, personal milestones, walking the Camino. Traveling to their once in a lifetime destination, kind of anything. I think the quid pro quo in terms of love and loyalty, making that circle of energy in terms of how people feel about their work and about their managers and about their organizations, if you can figure out ways to offer that, it’s just there are no downsides as far as I’m concerned.

[00:24:27] Advaita Naidoo: Even if we’re saying circle of energy, yes.

[00:24:32] Debbie Goodman: Okay. All right. I think that’s it. We’re almost at time. Thank you everyone for listening to this episode of On Work in Revolution. So, just remember this was about your permission slip to take the effing break and whether it’s a day, whether it’s a week, a real sabbatical. Lots of encouragement.

Actually, I’m just about to go on a week’s break tomorrow, and I am now going to try to stay mostly offline. So yeah, let’s see if I can do some good modelling around that. Thank you so much, Advaita, for joining me today. As always, so much fun.

[00:25:07] Advaita Naidoo: Always.

[00:25:08] Debbie Goodman: Bye now.