The HoneyBook Reset
One of the signs of a great culture is values and action alignment. “People Come First” and “We Are Fearless” are two of our five core values. I want to share how we recently put these two values into action by making a fearless decision for the good of our people.
2020 has been a challenging year for so many reasons. By the time October came around, our team had been working around the clock since March to ensure our HoneyBook members–small businesses–had all the support they needed to survive in the “new normal”. Our Leadership Team felt like it was time to give people space to reset.
We moved quickly and within a week, we architected The HoneyBook Reset–a collective week off to recharge as a company. This means we pushed back our projects, product roadmap, and even our Board Meeting to make space for this pause. It wasn’t an easy decision, and it was a decision we knew would have a huge impact on the wellbeing of our employees. This gave us a chance to take a collective deep breath so we could come back refreshed and ready to finish out the year strong.
Why not encourage everyone to take a week off of their choosing? We know our employees and we know how much they care about our members. As much as we previously encouraged people to take their own time off to reset throughout this unprecedented year, we know sometimes it’s hard to feel like you can. When the whole company is off for a week, it lets employees slip into a different kind of decompression than they’d get when they knew work was still there, happening without them.
You may be wondering what this meant for our business-critical teams. Some business-critical roles needed to be online and to help out our members during the week. Those individuals are taking an alternate week off before the end of the year–their own Reset Week.
So, how did our HoneyBookers feel about The HoneyBook Reset? Emotions ranged from grateful and excited to very pleasantly surprised. We even got a few happy tears. One employee said, “this company never ceases to amaze me!”
Here’s a look at how our people spent Reset Week.
How have you taken some time to reset this year? It doesn’t need to be a macro reset like a reset week, it could be smaller, consistent micro resets. However you are resetting, find ways to take care of yourself that work for you. We could all use the extra support this year.
If you’re a fellow People Ops person, how are you taking care of your employees during this unprecedented year? I’d love to hear!
