Why Workers Need Time Off: Lessons Learned From Cortex’s SpaceTime Policy
This edition of PIE is co-authored by Aaron Nguyen and Walker Stamps.
When Riley Adamson was still in college, he interned at Johnson and Johnson’s medical device division, where he discovered his founder-market fit in being a healthcare innovator, where he could improve patients’ quality of life on a regular basis. After graduation, he founded Cortex Health Inc., a fully featured software platform for post-acute providers (rehabilitation centers, long term care hospitals, and home health services). His goal is to empower healthcare providers with better information to help individual patients.
We were given the amazing opportunity to interview Riley and learn about his experiences navigating the entrepreneurial world as a recent college grad. Learning about his company, especially their unorthodox policies towards time off from work, has been extremely insightful. It raises a discussion about how time off should be implemented at any company, whether it be a growth-stage startup or a massive tech company like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Facebook.
The Cortex time-off policy is known as SpaceTime, which has the slogan, “SpaceTime means you manage your own time off.” The general premise of this policy is that you get to choose the number of days you want to take off, as long as your work is getting done in a timely manner and you continue to work cohesively and communicate with your team. If you are hitting your targets on time, then you do not need to ask for approval, but you must let your team know days in advance. And when you do take time off, you are expected to completely disconnect from work. Employees are expected to take at least two weeks off a year.
(Walker’s perspective) When I worked for BoxPower this past summer, the leadership team and members of the general employee base would take short vacations to keep themselves fresh and motivated, similar to SpaceTime. I personally noticed that these breaks were useful in keeping the team productive and working.
By contrast, in 2017 the average American only received about 10 days of paid vacation in their first year in private industry, and 52% of employees had unused vacation days by the end of the year. Meanwhile, people in other parts of the world live in a very different work environment. By law, every business in the European Union must give at least four work weeks of paid vacation.
(Aaron’s perspective) I had an eye-opening experience traveling abroad to visit relatives in the Netherlands. Having conversations with my two aunts, I noticed how much more they were looking forward to traveling compared to many people I meet back at home in the US. For many people here, they talk about wanting to travel, but never act on their desires because of work obligations. My two aunts are always consistently looking to plan their next trip, whether it be coming to the US to visit or traveling to different places abroad. They don’t just want to travel, they make it their priority to travel.
Many factors play into the stigma of taking vacation days in American culture. Much can be attributed to the lack of communication about vacation policies at companies. Workers report getting negative, confusing, or no communication regarding policies for taking time off. On top of that, employees have fears on possible drawbacks of taking time off, including returning back to huge amounts of work or being seen as a replaceable employee. As a result, many Americans do not take up the opportunity to use all their paid vacation days.
Studies have proven that taking time off is immensely beneficial for employees and in turn, the company employing these workers. A study done by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health shows that not taking time off from work leads to stress and exhaustion. Workers can damage their own physical and emotional health, which in turn can result in workers burning out. Allowing workers to take days off and completely unplug from work like Cortex’s policy can prevent these situations from occurring. As workers begin to burnout at work, the productivity of workers decrease. Workers need time off to clear their minds and take on their tasks in a state of better mental clarity.
Policies like SpaceTime are quintessentially products of startups, which use such policies to attract top talent. The small size of startups also means that it’s easier to stay updated on everyone’s whereabouts through informal communication. Larger companies require more management, which means less freedom with when employees can take time off. That being said, working towards a culture where people don’t feel afraid to take a break from work is a goal worth pursuing for any business, whether large or small. If you’re a young startup founder, consider experimenting with something like SpaceTime instead of a rigid time-off policy. If your team is self-driven and flexible, it might just make for happier, healthier, and more productive employees.
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