Welcome Back Document
Could it mitigate the Fear of Missing Out?
Stop for a moment and try to remember: what do you usually feel on your first day back from vacation?
There is no “right” answer because people face situations differently. Honestly, I usually feel a bit anxious when I get back to work. Sometimes I even start to work one day before to catch up fast on what has happened. Of course, it’s not ideal.
When I came back from my last vacation, I remember feeling the same old thing, and I started to think, “There must be something that I can do to avoid this next time” — Maybe therapy? Yeah, you're right. Besides that, I didn’t think of anything to help me in the short run.
But then, I’ve started to think:
“maybe I could do something to avoid people feeling the same way I do”.
Last December, two colleagues went out on vacation at the same time — my boss, the Engineering Director, and the team’s Product Manager. They asked me to be in charge during their absence. That was my chance to try something new, but what?
Start small, try it, and get feedback
I created a document for each called “Welcome Back <Name>”. “Ok, but what should I add to the document?” — I thought.
I’ve tried to answer this question by thinking of how they must feel when they are back. You have pages of emails to read, thousands of slack channels (DMs, threads, and channels), and, last but not least, the team feeling, something that we usually feel in the air but it’s not written anywhere. We called it the Fear of Missing Out.
So I’ve started to add what has happened that I considered necessary to them in the following format:
Dec 28, 2021 — Tuesday
- New ways of working from home have been announced (link here)
- We launched the Feature X to Denmark and Sweden
- X asked for a vacation
And I’ve been doing this by the end of the day, every day, for both of them.
Have you been logging your work to them?
Essentially, log work is more about the things that you do. The welcome back doc is filled with information you think is essential for the person to know. The objective is to mitigate the Fear of Missing Out that my colleague might have when they are back.
Action Items
One of my colleagues was off for more than two weeks. You might be thinking of how big the document was. My most significant learning here is that they will probably read it without full attention or skip some pages. It’s their choice, and it’s not up to me to decide what they must pay attention to or not.
At the end of the document, I've added one session explicitly suggesting some “Action Items.” The format is:
- I couldn’t approve an invoice related to X; could you please check it?
- X asked for a vacation, and I’ve approved; I also added it to the team calendar. Could you please review it?
The idea here is to summarize the actions they should take right away. If they do, there is a high chance that they feel productive on their very first day back from vacation.
Main takeaways
I’ve been doing this document since then. It does require time for you to do it but nothing more than 10 minutes every day. However, I genuinely believe that worth the effort.
I’d suggest you to walk through the document with them and explain the details. It will help them re-construct a timeline in their minds (instead of figuring it out through emails, Slack, etc). You could also send the document by Slack and be available to explain something if needed. Both are ok, and it’s a matter of taste.
My colleagues told me that it helped them to catch up faster. You might be wondering if it removed their Fear of Missing Out. Honestly, I’m not sure; people face situations differently. But worth to try anyway.
