Ask HN: How do startups/lean teams successfully handle mat/pat leave?

[jd_illa]

Husband and I are expecting our first kid. We have decent mat/pat benefits for the US (3-4 mo each) but manage lean teams and are stressed about the impact our leave will have on our teams & us when we return.

If you're manager of a lean team or startup, how have you effectively handled your or an employee's mat/pat leave when in reality, your biz is already short-staffed? Temporary promotions? Contractors? Spreading the work across the team?

(To be clear, both our companies are supportive of leave, so this isn't a question about whether to take the leave or working during leave.)

[SkyPuncher]

I've done this. I lead a lean team and took parental leave last year.

* Start now by trusting your team with absolutely anything you can. For about 2 months before my leave, I was extremely explicit with my team that I was attempting to deprecate myself. I wanted feedback on what they thought were risks.

* Consider using the time for someone else to "test try" your job. Think someone would be interested in being a manager, it's their time to try it. You will need to be explicitly clear that they own your job while you're out and they will need to make changes as they see fit.

* Ask your boss or peer to do 1:1's with the person stepping in your place

-----

On my team, this was pretty successful. It created an opportunity for me to step to the next level and someone else to follow in behind me. That situation won't be true for all teams. However, startups are intended to grow. Grow your people now, so you're ready when you really need them.

[servercobra]

Thanks for posting this! I'm CTO at a pretty new startup and hopefully going to be on paternity leave next year. This makes me feel a little bit better about it and seems like a great approach.

[CodeWriter23]

Haven’t experienced this myself but I was contemplating the possibility of subordinate team members executing well in your absence and ending up with your job. Glad there was a higher place up for you. Where I am I already report to the CEO, the only “up” for me would be some sort of coup.

[jxramos]

I second this. When our boss on my team went on maternity leave one of the teammates stepped up to take on her role and get that slice of managerial experience. It worked pretty well for everyone involved and kept the ball rolling.

[solarmist]

Saving this comment for later. Excellent game plan.

[hn_throwaway_99]

I don't really agree with the other comments so far, as they minimize the impact that your leave will have on your remaining team members. "They will self manage and someone else will step up." But the corollary there is that if your teams can handle just as well without you as with you, then the rational decision would be for your company to just fire you if you aren't raising the output or success probabilities of your team.

First off, yes, I agree with the notion that you should take the leave, and that being with your children at this time is much more important than work. That said, here is how I've seen other folks handle it:

1. If possible, especially for paternity leave, I think it's a good idea for both your team and your family if you can break up some of your time, e.g. take a month or two now, then come back to work for a month or two, then go back off for a month or two. Many folks have family that will help with the kids in the early days, so it was helpful to always have a extra pair of hands at home for the mom during the first half year or so.

2. Your team will feel the burden of extra work when you're on leave, but I think it's good just to recognize that and set things up as best as possible beforehand. Sometimes people get sick, or people leave for other reasons. Mat/pat leave is just one more thing people and businesses need to learn to handle, and (and I say this as someone without kids), even a small team will have to learn to deal with these "curve balls" at one point or another. You shouldn't feel guilty for taking your leave, just like one shouldn't feel guilty for getting sick.

[0xfaded]

> But the corollary there is that if your teams can handle just as well without you as with you, then the rational decision would be for your company to just fire you if you aren't raising the output or success probabilities of your team.

IMO, anyone who deprecates themselves from an important role within a team has successfully scaled themselves in a very interesting way (same output, but person is free to do other things). Such a person would seem very valuable and destined to scale in even more interesting ways.

[cortesoft]

> Many folks have family that will help with the kids in the early days, so it was helpful to always have a extra pair of hands at home for the mom during the first half year or so.

This is a strange comment, considering the person asking the question IS the mom.

Secondly, I feel like your entire argument around the extra work the team will face (and the idea that the team being fine with them gone means they provide no value) has an unstated premise; that the amount of work the team has is constant and can't be changed.

When a team member is gone, we expect the team to be less productive. The team and company should plan for this, and commit to less work during the period. The idea is that the team should GRACEFULLY reduce their workload, and not grind to a halt completely.

[martythemaniak]

The idea isn't that the team will have an identical quantity and quality of output, but that everything will keep working smoothly at an appropriate pace. Deprecating yourself refers to not being a hoarder of information, decisions and all the other nasty ways in which people try to make themselves indispensable. Your team should always benefit from you being there, but your absence should never make the team fall apart and stop working effectively.

[qwerpy]

Counterpoint about breaking up the parental leave into multiple chunks: I did this once before (3 chunks) and would not recommend it. Each time when I came back, by the time I ramped back up and could finally start contributing again, it was time to go back on leave. Maybe I'm slow on ramp-up, or my team moves very fast, but that was my experience.

[baq]

> But the corollary there is that if your teams can handle just as well without you as with you, then the rational decision would be for your company to just fire you if you aren't raising the output or success probabilities of your team.

if you're indispensable, you're unpromotable

[simonw]

If you can coach and build a team to the point where they are effective without you being present, when you come back from your maternity/paternity leave I would be delighted to have you take on that same challenge again but on a bigger and more impactful scale.

[skipants]

Hard disagree. This makes the assumption that this person can not put on any other hats, which would make me question how they got into a startup in the first place.

I can see your point in the case where the person does nothing already, leaves, and it has no impact. But in the top-comment where this happens specifically _because_ the person deprecated themselves then that person has definitely shown how valuable they are.

If they can do that well you know they'll fit in anywhere. You should definitely fight to find a place for them when they come back.

[roflyear]

It's just a company. Take your time and spend it with your family, and don't stress about it. In a decade you're not going to regret bonding with your spouse and child and missing some work.

[alberth]

While I completely agree with your comment, I have also seen repeatedly in my career where colleagues quickly became disgruntled towards the person taking mat/pat leave because that meant more workload for them while the other person was out.

[AnotherGoodName]

You'll also be surprised at how well people step up. You're going to be doing two productive things here: Bonding and giving room for growth to others.

[icelancer]

Your family typically needs your salary as well, so just ignoring your job isn't really the entire solution.

[spaghettiToy]

Imo, I'd rather have 3 months off when they are 1 to 3 years old. Those first few months are a slog.

I understand for moms, nursing is the real benefit.

[chrisseaton]

> It's just a company.

But it's not just a company. It's also your family's income. It's how you're feeding the baby you now have.

[refurb]

This 100%.

You’re not indispensable. Your team will be fine if you come up with a plan. Your manage should step up to fill the gap.

Go spend time with you family.

[ghiculescu]

I am doing this right now (paternity). I did what most of the comments suggested: asked someone to take on the essential parts of my role (CTO), and scaled back the non-essentials over the course of a few months.

It’s going extremely well. I think the person who took on my role is doing it better than I used to. A spring clean of responsibilities was helpful and forced us to document / distribute a variety of things that used to fall on me for no good reason.

Feel free to email me if you want to discuss more.

And most importantly, congratulations! You’re going to love it. Whatever you do regarding work, structure it so you don’t have to think about it when you do 2am feeds (because you really won’t want to).

[temende]

> asked someone to take on the essential parts of my role (CTO), and scaled back the non-essentials over the course of a few months

Just curious - in this case, do you also increase their compensation and/or title to reflect their additional responsibilities?

[almostarockstar]

CTO/Founder here. Coming up on 3 years with my co. Baby is 10 months now. Our tech team is small. Just me and three others.

My experience was very similar. Tried to make a gradual wind-down, spent more time documenting and planning while stepping away from core functions.

I will say that while “work” continued, “progress” slowed. People stepped up to manage, but nobody had the vision or the same passion for our product or future. I don’t blame them. It’s not their job.

[indymike]

> If you're manager of a lean team or startup, how have you effectively handled your or an employee's mat/pat leave when in reality, your biz is already short-staffed? Temporary promotions? Contractors? Spreading the work across the team?

I usually make a replacement hire and ask the person returning from leave if they want to keep doing what they were doing (this is a legal obligation) and if the returnee says yes, I offer to move the replacement to a different role (if the replacement is redundant and productive). In a small startup, leaves are a great way to expand the team - you get a great person back, and have a no risk way to try out a new person. You just have to remember that people on leave... be it National Guard, maternity or any other contractual or legally mandated leave absolutely have to get their old job back, and excuses for not doing so will result in painful, often losing litigation.

[lacker]

If you are a manager taking leave then you need someone else to manage the team while you are out. Often there is nobody on the team who is really ready to manage it. Then you'll need to get help from elsewhere; perhaps your manager can help out, or perhaps a manager elsewhere in the organization can assist.

It can be a tough situation because as a manager and a leader you have to take responsibility for what happens when you are on leave. Sometimes the replacement manager leads a mess and you are left responsible for it. Sometimes things will improve without you and company leadership won't want you to resume your old job when you return.

Personally, and as a father, I was fortunate to work at a company which was very flexible about paternity leave. I really preferred taking a couple weeks off at the start, and then returning to work but just working 4 days a week for a while (and not very long hours). It was approximately the same amount of leave but just structured differently. I really advocate this (for men taking paternity leave, whose wife is going to take full time leave) if you can swing it.

There are two reasons. One is that it works out better at home. Honestly as a father with a young baby and a wife who is taking leave, your wife and child do not need you in the house 24/7. A day a week to catch up on errands is great. Leaving work in time to make dinner is great. More than that, you just run out of useful stuff to do. And a six month old baby is really just about as much work as a three month old baby! Having five Fridays off to run errands with a six month old baby is more useful than using those same days of leave to take a whole week off with a three month old baby.

The second reason is that it works out better at work. If your manager is only working four days a week for a while and not working late, it's basically fine, as long as you aren't at some super intense startup. It isn't disruptive to your team, you're still available to help people, you're still in touch with what's happening at work.

[michaelt]

> then returning to work but just working 4 days a week for a while (and not very long hours).

Kinda depends on the structure of your job and whether you're able to shift a proportional amount of work to other people.

When I've worked 4-day weeks, people have 'helpfully' rescheduled all the meetings from that day over to days when I'm working, giving me just as much work to do but less time to do it.

[teknopaul]

Every one should be able to take leave and not kill your project at any time. If that's not where you are now the project is at risk. Someone might change jobs just as much as mat/pat leave. You should make sure that no one person knows how do perform any task that is needed.

Even/especially soft skills like being "leader for a day". Or being "last word on xxx" for a day. Or driving some change.

If you do that without fail the team is able to cover anyone else. Any team of 7 people has one 7th the extra workload when someone is absent, but nothing should stop working. When you are 7 again, if its the person with knowledge back, you are up to speed immediately; if it's someone new, it takes time to get back to where you were.

If you work like: this when it's your turn to be off, noone will miss you, or curse your absence, and they will be very pleased when you are back.

In short "spread the work across the team" and "temporary promotions" as everyday practices, before and after expected leave.

This approach pays off immediately, shorter absences such as plane delays, crisis at school or someone just being late to a meeting, are easier to deal with too.

[microtherion]

So much this. If a team is run so "lean" that an extended absence for anyone can create a crisis, that seems evidence that the team is run excessively "lean".

And this is not just for parental leave: What if one of the singles has a hang gliding accident necessitating a lengthy recovery? What if somebody quits?

If that invariably leads to overwork for the remaining team members, you risk a cascade of departures/burnout, and even if you get lucky and run for a few years with minimal slack and no major absences, it's likely that this has consequences for the well being of some of the team members.

[Jemaclus]

Director-level here. Given enough notice (let's say weeks, not days -- but hopefully you have months of notice!), I will figure something out. This is not your problem -- it's my problem.

I always encourage people taking mat/pat leave to take the entire time alotted by the company. It's just a job. I can deal without you. If I can't deal without you, then I haven't been doing my job. As a leader of a lean organization, I am constantly thinking about the bus factor.

It's not just mat/pat leave, but what if you got COVID and were out for a week? What if you had an emergency health situation and had to be out for six weeks? What if you just straight up quit tomorrow? How would I handle that? Well, it turns out that's the same way I would handle mat/pat leave. If we're down, we have to fill in the gap somehow. We'll manage. We have to.

Maybe that means hiring contractors temporarily. I've done that. It's a fine solution. But truth is that the only true thing to do is to work to make sure the workload is distributed across other people, deprioritize the least important things and put them in the backlog, and make sure that everyone is aware that any projects this person is responsible for will move slower until either this person returns or we can bring more resources to bear on the project. We can't overload the rest of the team, but we also can't operate at 100% capacity -- the business needs to realize that. And if they don't, then that's a Big Problem that has nothing to do with your paid family leave.

Right now there are currently 2-3 people in my org that are so critical that if something happened, we'd be totally boned. Fortunately, they are all healthy and happy and not expecting children at the moment, so it's not an urgent emergency, but I am still spending a chunk of my time getting some cross-training in with other team members to make sure that the bus factor is at an acceptable level.

Long story short: it's not your problem if your teams can't handle your absence, it's your manager's problem. And if they can't handle that... well, it's just a job. There are other jobs out there. You can find one that treats you like a human being worthy of respect and time and energy.

I wouldn't stress out too much about it, honestly.

[bloomzoom]

In my experience, people who rush back don't end up staying at the job very long. There is resentment created/builds. Especially among the moms. There's been a few studies on % who return to work...much higher after being allowed to take a clean break for a child's birth.

Don't rush it. It's the 4 glass balls and 1 rubber ball rule. The only one that won't break is the job.

[jedberg]

My friend is the CEO of a small startup. Her husband is basically the COO. They didn't really take mat/pat leave. They pulled back on their work a bit, stopped doing 1 on 1's for a while, and stopped traveling, but they were still both taking important meetings.

She did however have the benefit of both sets of grandparents being able to live with her during the first few months, so she had a lot of help.

So I guess the big tip here is, if you can get full time live in help take advantage of it?

Sorry if this isn't super helpful, but just another data point for you.

[stingraycharles]

Doesn’t sound like a great life choice, but rather a symptom of terrible work/life balance.

I also worked at a startup before where the CEO and her husband were both working there, and it led to a terrible dynamic.

[vivegi]

Do you have a business continuity plan (for your team) that is part of the continuity plan for the overall business? If not, use this opportunity to create one. I am guessing based on my past experience that a fast moving startup may not have had time to fully plan an effective BCP (customer facting processes, technology, organization, people and process). So, doing this is generally valuable in the long run.

When you start thinking in these terms, you will be able to figure out obvious solutions that include rotating responsibilities amongst team members, how to handle inter-departmental expectations and agreements etc., Involve your team members as well so you get a full picture of all the risks and you can come up with mitigation plans (or at the least know the gaps so that you can go to your manager and have an intelligent discussion).

If you have enough time to plan this out, you can consider adding a couple of paid interns to the group to help your team members with the workload, freeing them up for taking on your tasks while you are away. Or if additional hiring is anyway planned for the future, you may be able to talk your management into advancing one or two hires sooner to help the business sail through this.

Most reasonable business managers will be able to look at things wholistically and help you find a solution that helps you and the business. There may also be resources from other departments that they may be able to borrow to help you, so don't assume anything.

Enjoy your well-deserved timeoff with your family.

[throwoway876]

> If you're manager of a lean team or startup, how have you effectively handled your or an employee's mat/pat leave when in reality, your biz is already short-staffed? Temporary promotions? Contractors? Spreading the work across the team?

I took two months of paternity leave in my funded startup of 2 people. I told my colleague (an experienced guy but nonetheless my subordinate) to take a 2 month vacation and said nothing to anyone else. It was fine. My wife is in a profession with 65hr actual weeks and it was the maximum time she had.

The reality is that in places that are big enough to have subordinates / tiers with enough autonomy, it doesn’t really matter.

Your work is going to seem so easy compared to the baby. Especially because you go from working like 10-20 real hours to 70.

That said, now is the time to find another job. Especially if you are going to start your leave before delivery. There is so much discrimination in workplaces against this “change of arrangement.” Every high powered intelligent new mom I know who came to their own conclusion to seek new work was delighted she did so.

[bhouston]

I've done on parental leave twice as a founder. Each time was very different and it was dependent upon the size and stage of the company.

The first time was when the company has 8 employees, and I was handling all sales/customer relationships. I took 2 days prior to my wife giving birth and then 4 days afterwards. The team was prepared and handled it well. I was then part-time for the next month or so. I did all nighttime feedings and then handed off our little girl to my parents at 7am (who come to our house during the day) and sleep until around 12 noon and then went to work on site until 5/6pm. This was pre-pandemic of course.

The second time around the company has grown to 100 employees and we have raised a few rounds of financing and we have a well developed management team. This time I am taking 12 weeks fully off. It is quite nice to know that the company is now scalable. I am currently 3 weeks into the 12 weeks.

[wjossey]

I took 5 weeks off from my startup when I had my first, and I’ll be taking 3 months off for my second who arrives end of the month. I’m at a larger organization now in a leadership role, and my past startup I was one of three.

As others are already writing, you should take some bonding time and adjustment time, regardless of company size. Those first few weeks are a huge adjustment, and you need to focus on your family, partner, and newborn, more than a company.

How long is appropriate then becomes a question of a number of factors. I don’t want to make a value judgment on anyone who feels like 2 weeks is enough vs someone who says 12 weeks is the minimum. Life is complicated and nobody knows your situation better than you. But, you should optimize first for your family, and then once that is finished, figure out what a return to work timeline looks like.

Parenthood is such a wild journey with its own unique set of challenges, struggles, and joys. My best to you and your partner.

Godspeed.

[quelsolaar]

Im the CTO of a company that got funded, about the first time i became a parent. In the year since i have been promoted to CEO. Living in Sweden i have access to generous paternity leave, but taking it out would kill my company.

Some how im making it work and am pretty close to an equal parent. You learn tricks, like you best friend is a headset. Keyboard time is extremely valuable, so i try to use it for code, and use voice for a lot of communication. I love my job so if i can spend 8h working and 8h with my son life is good and i dont need more, if i can do both like taking a meeting when in the park things are stellar.

Dont get me wrong its hard, but loving what you do is the key to doing anything that is hard.

[rufius]

Generally, everyone should have clear goals - use OKR’s if you want for this.

If the goals are clear and time bound, then execution be straightforward enough. The trick is what to do if things don’t go according to plan.

I generally ask my team to do a little tabletop for the quarter on what “release valves” or alternate routes we have to accomplishing the goal.

Also - if you’re essential to the team executing, you’re already behind. Engineers aren’t fungible cogs, but part of a leader’s job is to teach team members how to do their job.

A resilient team can execute without all members because there’s shared goals and roles/responsibilities.

[freeqaz]

A quarter is like a decade at an early stage startup though. I'm not sure how many employees OPs company has though, so maybe they're at a bigger stage.

We're at 4 people currently and it would be extremely difficult to set goals that span 3 months. There is too much in flux.

[Dove]

The place I work now has a really wonderful policy: maternity/paternity leave can be used in a part-time fashion. People who are recent parents frequently come in for a couple days a week, or a few hours a day -- as they think will work best as they try to balance two worlds.

Now, don't get me wrong -- for a few weeks after birth, you're injured and shouldn't be working at all. At all. And for a few months after, you're in an intensive time of bonding and sleep disruption, and outside demands should be kept to a minimum. I found that my time of maximum stress and exhaustion with my three babies occurred when the babies were 3-7 mo old. So be gentle to yourself; it's a marathon. Minimize work commitments. I tell first time parents that all the stuff you want to do, that you want to get back to, that you feel like you lost... you can do it next year. Take a baby year. Nobody ever listens to me, but... ;)

Anyway. Don't threaten any of that with part time work. But if you have a few hours of the day to give to the company, it lets you really get done the stuff only you can do, and gives you a break from baby baby baby all the time to boot. I have found that such an approach forces me to be efficient. Turns off I can hand off some tasks I thought I couldn't, or can scale back some I didn't think were scalable. In turn, I'm a lot more willing to come back to work a lot sooner if it's not for a full day.

[bebop]

I cannot speak to how you live your life, but I find myself very invested in my job. This is in general a good thing (I think) as it provides me the mental state to try and do the best job that I can as working hard is easy. The question you have posed leads me to believe you may feel similarly.

That said, my two boys (5 months, 6 years) are the most important thing in my life (along with my wife of course). My second son is 5 months old now and I just took 3 months off to care for him. I wish I had more time, 2 years might be enough. When my first son was born I only took two weeks of vacation, which was not even close to enough. It is something I still regret.

While I do not like to give parenting advice, I can say with certainty, you should take as much time as you possibly can. Don't think about work, don't look at work, try not to worry about work, it will be there when you return. As a mother, spend time to recover physically. No matter how the child is born, the process is very physically taxing and your body will change a lot in the following weeks/months. Make sure you are keeping an eye on your mental health, postpartum depression is not something to take lightly. Most important, try to relax (it is hard) and just love your child. The first months are wild.

[dangus]

If you're a manager, and you're not director or c-suite (i.e., you don't control the budget), this isn't your problem.

Go to your manager and present the situation, and see what they have available to you. Do they have budget for contractors, new hires, etc? Because, if they don't, you don't have any real options besides dumping the work on one or more people, or allowing deadlines to be pushed back.

They either have/make headcount or they don't.

If your business is already short staffed, the employees are already being exploited.

Let me repeat: Perpetual short staffing is exploitation. "Running lean" isn't a real thing, it's just a fancy way to say that the company is making compromises that an established business wouldn't make. You either need staff or you don't.

The business will miss deadlines and that's fine. Unless you own the company, it's not your problem.

Take your entire leave. Do not check email or Slack while you're on leave. Take your entire leave. Do not check email or Slack while you're on leave. Take your entire leave. Do not check email or Slack while you're on leave.

[awslattery]

CTO of a 4 person org.

Took 4.5 months of paternity leave, and 1 month of flex-time in December 2021.

Worked for us by knowing it was coming to plan ahead for in terms of breaking down knowledge silos, dry runs of delegating niche tasks, and documenting tasks I became owner of in tenure.

During paternity leave, I was fully disconnected. Upon my return, I had a team who grew during that time, and we're more resilient as a result of my time away.