Thread by @joelgascoigne

☀️ So excited to share that we've introduced Sabbaticals in the Buffer team.

It's pretty simple:

🏖 After every 5 years of working at Buffer, we’re inviting teammates to take a 6-week break, fully paid.

Full details from @courtneyseiter: open.buffer.com/sabbaticals/

"The cost of folks taking this much leave is fairly big, but the cost of losing them due to burnout – which has been named as a factor in type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, gastrointestinal issues, high cholesterol and even death – is even bigger." - @courtneyseiter

I have my own personal story of why I believe so much in sabbaticals, and why we've invested in a large way in teammate well-being.

Thread 👇

In mid 2017, I hit burnout in a really big way.

In the year prior, we had hit financial issues and done a round of layoffs, we'd started to see our growth slow, I had significant misalignment with my co-founder, and eventually both my co-founder and our CTO left Buffer.

It was a whole lot of change, stress and adaptation in a short space of time, to put it lightly. @paulg has said before "you can think of a startup as a way to compress your whole working life into a few years" and it sure felt that way.

Beyond the work stress, I had challenges in my relationship too. With the benefit of hindsight, I now realize both @jesszliu and I had a lot of stress at the time, and it clouded everything and made us negative, stubborn and heavy. We got through it 😀 and are now engaged 🎉

In the couple of months following the peak of all this (with my co-founder and CTO leaving Buffer), I became fueled by adrenaline. I knew I needed to get the company through the crisis. I cared so much about Buffer and about everyone, and nothing was going to stop me solving it.

I remember, for example, speaking individually with every person in the company over 1:1 video call about the changes, in the 2 weeks after these events. I literally spoke with 80+ people individually. I had the adrenaline and drive to do that, and it was such a good decision.

We also had a whole company retreat shortly afterwards. This was a hugely important moment for me to be able to talk in person and explain the prior year. I had to perform and lift spirits; and also just connect with people. It took a lot of energy.

At a certain point, the company started to stabilize. Things looked up. We were in the clear, we'd got through the big wave of current challenges. Now I could relax! Or so I thought.

For me, what happened then, was that I hit burnout and some real lows. I think what happened was, the adrenaline subsided, it wasn't needed anymore, and my body and mind suddenly realized everything I'd gone through.

For me, this is how I'd describe my experience of burnout:

I lost motivation. I just didn't care. I knew I cared deeply, but I had nothing left. I couldn't get up in the morning. I felt very sensitive and emotional. It was like anything could set me off, and make me well up.

A journal entry from that time:

"I'm feeling this general dull sadness or struggle in me."

And another:

"I'm quite sure that I'm feeling burned out. Everything feels harder, and I'm generally feeling a cloud over me and more low in energy and pessimistic than usual."

Eventually, through a lot of extremely kind support from my leadership team, I decided to take a break from Buffer. In actual fact, what really happened was that I tapped out. I couldn't really go on anymore. Unfortunately, I basically left it until breaking point.

I delegated my responsibilities, wrote up a memo to my leadership team and a memo to the whole company, and almost immediately started taking leave, a sabbatical.

I didn't plan anything specific for my time off, and I didn't even have a specific date that I planned to be back. But this was more of an extreme case and I just wanted to return when I knew I was better.

The first few days, I literally did nothing. I woke up late, I watched YouTube, I went climbing with a friend, I went on long walks. I don't think it would have helped for me to make any bigger plans.

If you're feeling burned out and are thinking about taking time off or a sabbatical, I recommend doing it without plans. If you feel like you should have some big sabbatical plans, it may only add more stress to a time where you're very sensitive.

And this is how it was for a few weeks. I started to exercise a lot, too, because I had all the time in the world. My spirits started to rise and I eventually did actually make some plans. I chose to go to the Dominican Republic for a week and learn to kitesurf. It was awesome.

Sometimes people ask: how did you resist checking in on the company? Well, I was so burned out that for the first two weeks it was not something remotely in my mind. I had delegated, and had full trust in my team. But I was so drained and unmotivated, it didn't enter my mind.

This is also the time that I started meeting with a therapist. I've had a few breaks at times, but to this day I still meet every 3 weeks with my therapist. Huge thanks to @hnshah for his recommendation and kindness. This is something I cannot recommend highly enough.

After about 3-4 weeks, I felt much better. I felt lighter, I got my energy and motivation and excitement for Buffer again. And I was in a much better state to handle other things that would come my way later that year. I vowed to do better about self-care, and have ever since.

I don't want anyone to experience the burnout I went through, if we can avoid it. And I believe we can! This is why I've been so excited about us putting a true sabbatical policy in place at Buffer. Huge kudos to @courtneyseiter for figuring it all out and making it happen.

We're lucky at Buffer to have people in their 5th, even 6th year at the company. After so long working on something, especially with the intensity of a startup, it's natural for there to be a build up and dip in motivation. I believe we all need a reset every 5 years or so.

Sometimes people end up leaving a company when they feel burned out. But it might just be that they need a break. I'm excited that with sabbaticals, people can be re-energized and stay longer.

Read the details of our sabbatical policy experiment here: open.buffer.com/sabbaticals/