A Full Guide to Managing PTO for Remote Teams
Managing PTO can be difficult in any case. But with remote teams – particularly those with a distributed, global workforce – it’s even more complex.
Fully remote teams have unique challenges to contend with, such as legal and cultural differences, communication challenges, and a lack of visibility.
If you work to overcome these challenges, you can still build a thriving team, while allowing your team members the time off they need to stay happy and healthy and live a fulfilling life.
Read on and we’ll explain how.
Understanding PTO for Remote Teams
Since remote work is still a fairly new thing, there are fewer clear guidelines about how all the details (such as scheduling, and time off) should work.
It’s particularly cloudy if a team has members across state lines, or even in different countries.
There can be a temptation to think that PTO doesn’t matter as much, which is untrue. And the decentralized, asynchronous nature of most remote workplaces makes it difficult to coordinate PTO, to identify when someone needs PTO, and for team members to fully disconnect from work when they take time off.
Why Remote Workers Need PTO (Like Everyone Else)
PTO doesn’t seem as important with remote employees.
In the office, it’s clear. It’s easier to notice someone’s presence, and it’s easier to notice that they need a day off – whether it’s a vacation or sick leave.
It’s also easy to understand that people need to take time off work to take care of personal commitments, such as childcare.
Remote work comes with more flexibility, so some believe that this flexibility allows team members to balance their work and personal lives without having to take PTO.
But this is not quite true. Work is still work, whether it’s in the office or at home.
Workers still need a break from time to time. If they’re sick, they need to be able to switch off, rest, and take the time they need to fully recover, even if they don’t need to worry about infecting other team members.
They need to be able to go on a family vacation without thinking about work. They need to be able to handle personal matters without having to rush back to their laptop to make up the lost time.
And enough remote teams offer comprehensive PTO packages, that if you feel your company doesn’t need to do the same, you’ll find you lose out on the best talent to jobs who recognize the need for remote workers to take PTO just the same as office-based employees.
Further Reading: 7 Reasons to Prioritize Paid Time Off
The Biggest Challenges Managing PTO in Global Teams
There’s a laundry list of challenges involved in managing PTO for a remote team, especially teams with employees in different areas of the world.
Let’s run through these challenges now.
Legal Compliance
Different states and countries have different laws regarding PTO. This makes it extremely difficult for remote teams to stay fully compliant with the law.
For example, most US states don’t require any PTO at all. Yet in many European countries, employees are entitled to 4+ weeks of paid time off each year.
It’s all very confusing, and if you offer differing amounts of PTO to employees based in different areas of the world, it not only becomes very complicated to manage, but it can also sow serious discontent in your team.
Cultural Differences
Outside of legal obligations, employees may have very different expectations for how PTO should work.
Many Europeans, for example, are used to taking at least 2+ weeks off over the summer. Employees in some Asian countries will be expecting to take off a week or so for Lunar New Year.
Others may not be used to these customs – including leaders in the company, which can cause discontent.
Local Holidays
Teams also need to juggle the fact that each country, and sometimes state too, has its own local holidays.
Do you force all employees to take the same holidays, and risk upsetting those in other countries who miss out on celebrating local holidays with their friends and family?
Do you let each employee take off their own local holidays, which may feel unfair to those in locations with fewer public holidays? How about individuals with different cultural and religious backgrounds?
Recognizing Overwork & Burnout
With remote teams, it’s harder to see if someone has been working too hard and is in danger of burning out.
Peoples’ physical, mental and emotional state doesn’t always translate through the keyboard, or even on Zoom.
Where, in the office, you may have stepped in and suggested they take some time off, it can be difficult to know when to take action in fully remote teams.
Difficulty Switching Off
When remote team members do take time off, it’s often hard for them to fully disconnect.
When you’re used to working at home, and all you need is your laptop, there’s always the temptation to quickly log on and see if someone sent you a message, or an email, or just to see what’s going on.
Even if someone doesn’t log on, their mind might still be partially in “work” mode, because there isn’t that same, clear separation between work and home.
Communication & Coordination
There are unique challenges for remote teams in coordinating absences and ensuring work keeps going without disruption.
For example, it’s not always clear when someone is planning to take time off. In the office, they may have mentioned this in passing to anyone whom it’s relevant. But in a remote team, communication is often more deliberate, and this might be missed, leading to issues coordinating projects and missed deadlines.
Further Reading: How to Manage PTO for Part-Time Employees
How to Create an Effective PTO Policy for Remote Employees
Managing PTO in remote teams is not easy. But with conscious planning, you can create a system that benefits employees and the business alike.
Here are some tips on setting up your PTO policy as a fully remote and/or global team.
Know Your Legal Obligations
The most important thing with any PTO policy is that it’s fully compliant with the law – otherwise you could be hit with a crippling legal bill that might shutter the business.
Get professional legal advice to know what legal jurisdictions you need to comply with, and what you need to provide for each one.
Be Consistent With PTO Policies
It’s possible that you will end up with employees in different locations, with different PTO laws applying to each.
This means you could theoretically be able to provide employees with different amounts of PTO depending on where they live.
However, this is not a good idea. Even if you’re cleared legally, it will end up causing discontent among your team, if some people get significantly more PTO than others.
It’s a better idea to standardize your PTO package for all employees, no matter where they’re located. This will cost you more, but it will save you in the long run by helping you maintain a positive team culture.
Related: Can You Have Different PTO Policies for Different Employees?
Offer Floating Holidays for Public Holidays
Managing the difference between different locations’ public holidays, plus religious holidays observed by different cultures, is another big challenge.
The best way to overcome this in a remote team is to offer a standard amount of “floating holidays” to each employee.
A floating holiday is essentially a public holiday that the employee can choose when to take, rather than being tied to a specific date.
For example, you might give each employee 10 floating holidays to use for national holidays in their location. They can then choose whether they want to take time off for Christmas, Lunar New Year, Eid Mubarak, or any other holiday that’s important to them.
Proactively Encourage PTO Use
The biggest benefit of PTO is not as a hiring and recruiting incentive, but as a tool to keep your team members fresh, healthy and happy.
But they need to actually use their time off. Remote workers are more likely to feel guilty about whether or not they’re working hard enough, and thus tend to neglect their PTO.
You should actively encourage people to take all their time off. Send regular reminders, and follow up with those who have been a long time without taking any PTO, to ensure they’re not overworked and at risk of burning out.
Educate Team Members About the Importance of Switching Off
Similarly, you need to impress on team members that it’s important to fully disconnect when on leave.
If you don’t, many employees will feel they need to check in and do work while on PTO, reducing the benefit they get from their time off.
Make it clear that you don’t expect them to be in contact with the rest of the team when on leave, and that you want them to get a full, disconnected break from work.
Make Your Policy, Guidelines and Leave Calendar Easily Visible
Ensure your leave policy is easy for employees to find and refer to when needed.
HRIS systems or internal documentation managed in Google Drive or Notion are great ways to do this.
Also, make it easy to see upcoming leaves, ideally with a calendar that all members of the team can view, so people can plan ahead for other team members’ absences.
Keep Clear Records
Make sure you have a system in place to keep records any time employees take time off.
Without a centralized office space, it’s easier for things to get missed. Someone takes a day off, reports it to their manager, but the manager forgets to note it down (or thinks it’s not important).
Eventually you have no trail of how many days off people have taken, which causes problems with HR and payroll.
Your system should make it easy to log and track leaves, and help you keep error-proof records in your team.
Tracking PTO as a Remote Team
Your system is vital for effective tracking and management of PTO in remote teams.
Without a system, you’re going to end up with errors and omissions, with inefficiencies and too much time spent managing PTO.
Use a leave management system like Flamingo to keep track of your team’s leave. It integrates seamlessly with Slack, and automatically logs whenever team members take time off.
Keeping track of your team’s time off is vital, no matter how your leave policy is set up.
Not only do you need to know about upcoming leaves that might affect others in the team, but you need to be able to track how much time off each employee has taken, to ensure they’re getting enough time off to stay fresh and healthy.
The biggest mistake remote teams make is not tracking time off, and saying that productivity is all that matters.
That’s true – but you also need to actively push team members who are working themselves too hard for too long, to keep them engaged, healthy and productive long-term.
An effective leave management system helps you do this, without assigning a full-time staff member just to monitor and manage PTO.
Final Thoughts
PTO in remote teams is a poorly understood topic.
That’s understandable, since fully remote, global teams are still quite a new thing. But getting it right is important for your company’s long-term sustainability and success.
From managing legal requirements, to ensuring team members actually take time off, there are multiple issues to juggle, but you can do so with careful planning, consideration, and a bulletproof leave management system to help you.
