How You Can Bring Operation Chillax to Your Company

For the last four years, Proof has taken a week-long step away from our computers to rest and recharge during an annual Operation Chillax.

As a company-wide initiative to take time off, the goal is to truly disconnect from work — with no expectations to be on Slack and no need to worry about mountains of work piling up upon return. Instead, time can be spent doing what matters most.

Now that we have a few years experience Chillaxin’, we want to share a blueprint for how companies everywhere could adopt their own Operation Chillax.

Why should my company Chillax?

If you’re considering a company-wide vacation, you may be wondering what makes this type of time off so impactful versus just offering a few more vacation days to all employees. The main reason is that while traditional vacation days are still important, they’re not working quite how they’re intended.

A 2023 analysis from the Pew Research Center shows that 46% of U.S. workers who receive paid time off from their employer take less time than they are offered. While some workers say they don’t feel like they need to take more, many say they worry about falling behind at work or they feel badly about their co-workers taking on additional work.

Additionally, 37% of respondents to a Korn Ferry survey say they’ll check in with work multiple times a day during vacation and only 8% said they wouldn’t contact their offices at all.

These traditional vacation days aren’t always providing the true rest employees need to avoid things like burnout because they’re not able to truly step away or, if they do, they’re afraid about what is waiting for them when they get back - insert Operation Chillax.

The Chillax difference

Operation Chillax is a company-wide vacation meaning almost the entire company takes time off at the same time with a shared expectation of being totally logged off and restarting at work at the same time. This is important because it reduces or eliminates the need to pass additional work to co-workers, check in on things and feel overwhelmed when coming back to work.

Chillax is a holiday every one of our team members looks forward to each year and a benefit that is always mentioned in our satisfaction surveys. After each Chillax the energy shift of the team has been tangible (and we work remotely!), the team returns refreshed, recharged and more productive than before.  

Operation Chillax Checklist

Planning

Once your Chillax initiative is approved, select a few committee members from around the company who can help plan and communicate chillax, we suggest at least one representative from the following departments:

• Human Resources
• Marketing or External Communications
• Customer Support and any other teams that will be required for continued business operations
• Finance

Host a kickoff meeting with your committee. Share an agenda ahead of time, which may include:

• Committee introductions
• What is Operation Chillax and why is it a good idea for your company
• Selection of dates
• Assignment of next steps including internal and external communications as well as team specific on-call schedule planning
• Setting a budget for things like company swag to celebrate

You'll then want to work with your team to set dates for Chillax.

• Consider using an existing holiday to center the week off around. Customers and vendors will likely also be slower around this time which will reduce the impact on business operations. (Example: Proof chooses takes the week of July 4th off)‍
• Take into account busy times of the month or year for your team. Things like month end or quarter end close could make those weeks not viable for certain teams to step away from work. This is why having a committee of diverse teams and a proper approval process is vital to a successful Chillax.
• Set the dates at least 3 months in advance so employees have ample notice to make awesome plans and the business has enough time to prepare. Taking the same period of time off each year helps too.

Make an alternative schedule for teams that cannot all be off at the same time.

• For teams like Customer Support, select various alternative weeks and allow people to select which week they would like to take off instead in order to spread out the number of people off - thus mitigating the disruption to the business (Note: Even if an employee takes a different week off than the rest of the company, the same Chillax expectations should be honored for everyone)
• Additionally, select a few on-call people who can respond to major disruptions if they were to arise. This likely at least includes someone from Human Resources, IT, engineering and legal. 

Execution

• If you have a budget for employee appreciation consider ordering swag or giving the whole company food delivery gift cards that can be used during their time off. If your Chillax is during the summer, consider beach bags, sunglasses, picnic blankets, or anything else that may be useful for a week of disconnecting from work.

• Send a communication to your customers letting them know the company will be out and to expect a delay in response to non-urgent items but that there will not be a disruption to customer service as applicable.

• Create an internal FAQ page where employees can find more information about what and when Chillax is as well as who will be on-call in case of an escalation.

Post-Chillax

• One rule of Chillax is no meetings the first work day back. Give everyone a day to catch up, organize and jump back in. Making this a company-wide expectation allows everyone to fully enjoy their vacation knowing there is space for ramping back up.

• Send a survey out to gauge how Chillax was received. Ask questions about if people feel like they had enough time to plan, if they felt more or less relaxed than a traditional day off, and any other questions that will help you assess the effectiveness of your Chillax.

• Collect photos, stories and more to share on social media platforms such as LinkedIn to show how everyone spent their week off and drum up excitement for next year!

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Happy Chillaxin'!