Coevolving Innovations

… in Business Organizations and Information Technologies

Scheduled vacation: an industrial age concept

A colleague pointed out an article in the New York Times, “At I.B.M., a Vacation Anytime, or Maybe None“, by Ken Belson (online on August 31, 2007, subscription maybe required). The article starts with the lead:

It’s every worker’s dream: take as much vacation time as you want, on short notice, and don’t worry about your boss calling you on it. Cut out early, make it a long weekend, string two weeks together — as you like. No need to call in sick on a Friday so you can disappear for a fishing trip. Just go; nobody’s keeping track.

That is essentially what goes on at I.B.M., one of the cornerstones of corporate America, where each of the 355,000 workers is entitled to three or more weeks of vacation. The company does not keep track of who takes how much time or when, does not dole out choice vacation times by seniority and does not let people carry days off from year to year.

Instead, for the past few years, employees at all levels have made informal arrangements with their direct supervisors, guided mainly by their ability to get their work done on time. Many people post their vacation plans on electronic calendars that colleagues can view online, and they leave word about how they can be reached in a pinch.

My colleague joked that we have “unlimited vacation”, and that he would see us after he returned in a month. (He’s actually a manager, and I doubt that I’ll go another week without seeing an e-mail from him!)

The article also cites Best Buy, Motley Fool, and Netflix as other companies where counting every hour isn’t the practice.

Although the idea of putting the burden of scheduling vacation onto the employee might seem a bit strange for many people, there’s three deeper ideas within this practice.

First, in the age of knowledge work, it’s difficult for a supervisor to judge effort. Although the immediate coworkers of an individual might be able to subjectively estimate how much (or little) he or she is contributing, the supervisor isn’t necessarily as expert in the subject matter as the worker. It’s also impractical to apply the same procedure to judge the choices made by a senior employee with 25 years experience, as compared to a person with 2 years of experience. When choosing between measuring ends and measuring means, it works better for the employee and supervisor to negotiate the desired ends at the beginning of the planning period, and track against it — possibly with renegotiation — as time brings in more information.

Secondly, the article doesn’t say that employees aren’t supervised. There’s an administrative cost for recording and monitoring employee hours centrally. Following this logic, it means that employees enter data into a central database, and the central database sends a report to the supervisor. As business professionals complain more and more about the amount of e-mail that they have to wade through, perhaps it’s a better idea just to suggest to managers that that they should communicate frequently with their employees. If an employee is going to be away from work for more than two weeks, and the manager doesn’t know that he or she isn’t available, then there’s a bigger issue than data integrity.

Thirdly, I believe that recording hours is an artifact of an industrial age mentality. We turn machines on and off. This doesn’t mean that human beings work the same way. I’m reminded of a professor who was famous for a particular theorem. He got the idea for that theorem while pushing his daughter on a swing. If anything, the fact that human beings can’t stop thinking is a reason that professional work relies on highly-skilled workers rather than those who work mindlessly.

A good test for thinking about the current business world — e.g. an economy oriented more towards services than towards products created in industrial production — is to harken back to the agricultural era. When most workers were farmers, the work day was sunrise to sunset. The workgroups were either families or close-knit communities, so the reputation of an individual as a hard worker or slacker developed as a result of long-term observation. The first farmer who was asked to work in a factory from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. must have wondered about those wasted hours of sun in the summer, and the lunacy of trying to commute to work in the dark in the winter. Farmers can choose their own hours, with the relationship between the amount of effort they put in and the crop or livestock mostly obvious at harvest time.

Knowledge workers typing into a keyboard don’t have the same physical demands as farming, and they’re not constrained by daylight. In the short term, micro-managers may want to count hours, but from a broader perspective, it’s not hard to figure out which workers are producing for the company, and which aren’t.

1 Comment

  • Hi David,

    That is strange. In IBM in the UK we still have defined holidays. Having been around in IBM for 22 years (next Thursday)I get 3 extra days a year on top of the standard 27. As of 2 years ago, we also got the option of buying up to 10 days extra holiday per year. Having said that, I have certainly found my management very flexible about when and how I take holiday based on an understanding of the true hours I put in. Now my sister has moved back to the UK from Australia I don’t have to take big chunks to go and visit her. I save a lot on air travel and the associated environmental impact too..

    Cheers
    Martin


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • RSS qoto.org/@daviding (Mastodon)

    • daviding: “Reporting on research-in-progress on Sciencing and Philosoph…” August 18, 2023
      Reporting on research-in-progress on Sciencing and Philosophizing on Threads in #SystemsThinking tracing history of #pragmatism of #EricTrist + #FredEEmery & #WestChurchman + #RussellAckoff. Web video with #GarySMetcalf after #InternationalSocietyForTheSystemsSciences meetinghttps://coevolving.com/blogs/index.php/archive/sciencing-philosophizing-st-on-2023-07-10/
    • daviding: “Philosophical criticism of RfPs by #CWestChurchman (one of t…” August 6, 2023
      Philosophical criticism of RfPs by #CWestChurchman (one of the luminaries of #SystemsThinking). > All planning begins with a problem; however, it should not be confined to the problem statement. Also, the beginning should not be a clear problem formulation, but rather should be an utterance of moral outrage. John Dewey once said that problems arise […]
    • daviding: “How does #SystemsThinking relate to #Pragmatism? Within #Ph…” July 9, 2023
      How does #SystemsThinking relate to #Pragmatism? Within #PhilosophyOfScience, #CWestChurchman and #RussellLAckoff continued the #experimentalism of #EdgarASinger to put nonrelativistic pragmatism at the core of systems thinking in an entanglement of facts and values. https://coevolving.com/blogs/index.php/archive/nonrelativistic-pragmatism-and-systems-thinking/
    • daviding: “For those who think that open standards can be easily added …” July 7, 2023
      For those who think that open standards can be easily added on after code had already shipped, there's an extensive case study on Microsoft Office and OOXML. Here's a fun question: how long did it take Microsoft to meet the specification that they themselves wrote?http://openinnovationlearning.com/online/
    • daviding: “Threads doesn't initially support ActivityPub open standard,…” July 7, 2023
      Threads doesn't initially support ActivityPub open standard, and is not open source. Adding ActivityPub support doesn't preclude withdrawal later.> Will Meta embrace-extend-extinguish the ActivityPub protocol?> There are comparisons to be made between Meta adopting ActivityPub for its new social media platform and Meta adopting XMPP for its Messenger service a decade ago. There was a […]
  • RSS on IngBrief

    • Introduction, “Systems Thinking: Selected Readings, volume 2”, edited by F. E. Emery (1981)
      The selection of readings in the “Introduction” to Systems Thinking: Selected Readings, volume 2, Penguin (1981), edited by Fred E. Emery, reflects a turn from 1969 when a general systems theory was more fully entertained, towards an urgency towards changes in the world that were present in 1981. Systems thinking was again emphasized in contrast […]
    • Introduction, “Systems Thinking: Selected Readings”, edited by F. E. Emery (1969)
      In reviewing the original introduction for Systems Thinking: Selected Readings in the 1969 Penguin paperback, there’s a few threads that I only recognize, many years later. The tables of contents (disambiguating various editions) were previously listed as 1969, 1981 Emery, System Thinking: Selected Readings. — begin paste — Introduction In the selection of papers for this […]
    • Concerns with the way systems thinking is used in evaluation | Michael C. Jackson, OBE | 2023-02-27
      In a recording of the debate between Michael Quinn Patton and Michael C. Jackson on “Systems Concepts in Evaluation”, Patton referenced four concepts published in the “Principles for effective use of systems thinking in evaluation” (2018) by the Systems in Evaluation Topical Interest Group (SETIG) of the American Evaluation Society. The four concepts are: (i) […]
    • Quality Criteria for Action Research | Herr, Anderson (2015)
      How might the quality of an action research initiative be evaluated? — begin paste — We have linked our five validity criteria (outcome, process, democratic, catalytic, and dialogic) to the goals of action research. Most traditions of action research agree on the following goals: (a) the generation of new knowledge, (b) the achievement of action-oriented […]
    • Western Union and the canton of Ticino, Switzerland
      After 90 minutes on phone and online chat with WesternUnion, the existence of the canton of Ticino in Switzerland is denied, so I can’t send money from Canada. TicinoTurismo should be unhappy. The IT developers at Western Union should be dissatisfied that customer support agents aren’t sending them legitimate bug reports I initially tried the […]
    • Aesthetics | Encyclopaedia Britannica | 15 edition
      Stephen C. Pepper was a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, on the entry for Aesthetics.
  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • RSS on daviding.com

    • 2023/08 Moments August 2023
      Catching up with family and friends, locally in Toronto, west to Iowa, and east to Nova Scotia
    • 2023/07 Moments July 2023
      Busy with family visits and celebrations in first half of month. Return to quiet time in second half of month.
    • 2023/06 Moments June 2023
      Enjoyed early summer in Toronto with multiple festivals, and made a quick trip to Vancouver to visit family
    • 2023/05 Moments May 2023
      Spring full of cultural and family activities.
    • 2023/04 Moments April 2023
      Sightseeing one day in Vilnius, then variable weather in spring in Toronto.
    • 2023/03 Moments March 2023
      Right ring finger in splint discouraged activities, yet last week of month saw flying through Vienna to an intensive research visit to Kaunas University of Technology in Lithuania.
  • RSS on Media Queue

    • 2021/06/17 Keekok Lee | Philosophy of Chinese Medicine 2
      Following the first day lecture on Philosophy of Chinese Medicine 1 for the Global University for Sustainability, Keekok Lee continued on a second day on some topics: * Anatomy as structure; physiology as function (and process); * Process ontology, and thing ontology; * Qi ju as qi-in-concentrating mode, and qi san as qi-in-dissipsating mode; and […]
    • 2021/06/16 Keekok Lee | Philosophy of Chinese Medicine 1
      The philosophy of science underlying Classical Chinese Medicine, in this lecture by Keekok Lee, provides insights into ways in which systems change may be approached, in a process ontology in contrast to the thing ontology underlying Western BioMedicine. Read more ›
    • 2021/02/02 To Understand This Era, You Need to Think in Systems | Zeynep Tufekci with Ezra Klein | New York Times
      In conversation, @zeynep with @ezraklein reveal authentic #SystemsThinking in (i) appreciating that “science” is constructed by human collectives, (ii) the west orients towards individual outcomes rather than population levels; and (iii) there’s an over-emphasis on problems of the moment, and…Read more ›
    • 2019/04/09 Art as a discipline of inquiry | Tim Ingold (web video)
      In the question-answer period after the lecture, #TimIngold proposes art as a discipline of inquiry, rather than ethnography. This refers to his thinking On Human Correspondence. — begin paste — [75m26s question] I am curious to know what art, or…Read more ›
    • 2019/10/16 | “Bubbles, Golden Ages, and Tech Revolutions” | Carlota Perez
      How might our society show value for the long term, over the short term? Could we think about taxation over time, asks @carlotaprzperez in an interview: 92% for 1 day; 80% within 1 month; 50%-60% tax for 1 year; zero tax for 10 years.Read more ›
    • 2020/07/13 “Making Growing Thinking” |Tim Ingold (web video)
      For the @ArchFoundation, #TimIngold distinguishes outcome-oriented making from process-oriented growing, revisiting #MartinHeidegger “Building Dwelling Thinking”. Organisms are made; artefacts grow. The distinction seems obvious, until you stop to ask what assumptions it contains, about the inside and outside of things…Read more ›
  • Meta

  • Creative Commons License
    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
    Theme modified from DevDmBootstrap4 by Danny Machal