At PostHog, we encourage everyone to take time off to recharge, spend time with loved ones, or explore new things.
We offer our team unlimited time off, but with an expectation that you take at least 25 days off a year, including national holidays. This is to make sure that people can take time off flexibly while not feeling guilty about being on vacation.
We have added some national holidays to our team calendar, but these won't cover everyone. Please decide yourself if you want to take those specific days off. If you do, please remember to book the day off in CharlieHR and hand over any work, especially if you are doing anything customer-facing.
The reason for this policy is that it's critical for PostHog that we hire people we can trust to be responsible with their time off - enough that they can recharge, but not so much that it means we don't get any work done. The People team will look holiday usage occasionally but only to encourage people who haven't taken enough time off to do so. The 25 days is a minimum, not a guide.
As a benchmark, in 2021 the team on average took 32 days off.
Permissionless time off
You do not need to "clear" time off with your manager.
We care about your results, not how long you work. Whilst no approval is needed, it shouldn't be completely at the expense of business getting done. For example, having the entire engineering team off means we can't be responsive to community issues. Please coordinate with your team.
When you pick a date(s) to have off, please do three things:
- Enter it into CharlieHR and it will be automatically approved and added to the team time off calendar.
- Block out your own personal GCal to show that you are out. This is because Charlie only populates the separate team time off calendar - it doesn't automatically block out your calendar for you as well. If you don't do this, automated meetings such as interviews or demos might still get booked into your cal.
- Set an out of office message on your email (and have it point to someone else on the team, or hey@).
The same rules as above apply regardless of the vacation length.
You can add the team time off calendar to your Google Calendar by following these instructions on CharlieHR as well. CharlieHR only refreshes the calendar twice a day, so any changes you make won't be reflected immediately.
Flexible working
We operate on a trust basis and we don't count hours or days worked. We trust everyone to manage their own time.
Whether you have an appointment with your doctor, school run with your kids or you want to finish an hour early to meet friends or family - we don't mind and you don't need to tell us. Please just add it to your calendar and if you are customer-facing, please make sure you have cover.
Sabbaticals
As we have unlimited, permissionless time off, PostHog doesn’t offer ‘sabbaticals’ in the way that some companies do. Instead, we strongly encourage team members to use our existing policy to take a full month off every 3-4 years. We only ask that you organise this thoughtfully with your team by giving them enough notice to plan.
When you should have time off
You are sick
If you are sick, you don't need to work and you will be paid. This is assuming you need a day or two off, then just take them.
Please let your manager know if you need to take off due to illness as soon as you are able to.
For extended periods of illness, please speak to us so we can work out a plan. In some countries, we may be required to request a doctor's note from you.
Jury duty / voting / childcare disasters
There are lots of situations where life needs to come first. Please let it - just be communicative with us and fit your work around it as you need.
Bereavements / Child loss
We do not define “closeness” and we won't ask about your relationship to the person or what they meant to you. Take as much time as you need, just give us a quick update every now and then.
We extended our bereavement policy to also cover pregnancy and child loss for both parents, with no questions asked. Please take at least 2 weeks of paid leave. In case you need additional time for physical or mental health reasons, we will treat it as extended sick leave.
Parental leave
Parental leave is exceptional as it needs to be significantly longer than a typical vacation. Anyone at PostHog, regardless of gender, is able to take parental leave, and regardless of the way you've become a parent - childbirth, adoption or foster care.
If you have been at PostHog for over 1 year, you can take up to 12 weeks off on full pay. You can take a further 4 weeks unpaid leave if you need more time. After this, if you need to stagger your return to work, you can come back at 50% capacity on 50% pay afterwards. If you live in a country where a statutory parental leave benefit is available, you will be required to claim statutory parental leave pay (if you are eligible) and PostHog will supplement any gaps.
If you have been at PostHog for under 1 year, we will pay you according to your local jurisdiction's legal requirements.
Please communicate parental leave to your manager as soon as you feel comfortable doing so, and in any case at least 2 months before it will begin.
We are aware that there are local laws around time off for new parents in every country, and that these may vary. Wherever there is a discrepancy between local regulations and PostHog policy, local laws will override PostHog.