PTO Policy

Gradient values work-life balance and has instituted this PTO policy in an effort to ensure our team is rested, taking healthy time off from work, and that the rest of the team’s bandwidth is manageable while people are out.

Historically, Gradient has had an unlimited, “no ask, must tell” PTO policy. While this is appealing in theory, it resulted in two undesirable outcomes: 1) majority of the team took very little vacation time due to the lack of a tracking system for number of days off, and 2) when members of the same team were out at the same time this lead to bandwidth pinches for the rest of the team.

To encourage everyone to actually step away from work for vacation time, and to better plan out project coverage and workloads, we have instituted a new PTO policy. The Operations Team will monitor individuals’ PTO to encourage everyone to take adequate time off (nudging those who haven’t taken PTO in a while), and managers will assist their teams in establishing coverage plans while someone is out so business can successfully carry on.

Everyone is allotted 25 days of PTO per calendar year. These days are tracked by the full day—you do not need to take PTO for appointments or other situations where you will be offline for shorter periods of time. You can view your PTO balance in the Dashboard.

These 25 days are in addition to:

• National holidays in your country of residence.
• The week between Christmas Day (25 December) and New Years Day (1 January)—Gradient will be closed.

PTO requests should be submitted through the Request Form. You will be notified via email within 2 business days if your request is approved, or if additional information or coverage coordination is required.

Manager approval will be required for requests that:

• Overlap with other requests within the same team.
• Are equal to or more than 10 consecutive business days.

If you are gone for 72 hours without notification, this could be deemed as Job Abandonment.

Once you receive email notification of your PTO approval, it is your responsibility to do the following:

• Take any necessary actions to prepare your team to be able to successfully carry on projects in your absence.
• Mark the time away in your calendar—decline or reschedule meetings as appropriate. Reference the Google Calendar Best Practices for additional guidance.
  • Note: A calendar event will automatically be created in the Gradient Schedule calendar.
• Set an out-of-office reply on your email. Be sure to include a specific person and their email address who people should contact in your absence. This will ensure greater accountability and lessen the chances of responses falling through the cracks if people reach out to team@.

Unused PTO days will not roll over to the following calendar year and are not eligible for payout upon termination unless otherwise required by your state of residence or Dutch law.

Days missed due to illness and dependent care do not count towards your PTO. See the Non-PTO Time Off section for information on other leave policies.