A London-based CEO, who runs marketing firm Scale Systems, has sparked controversy online after denying two days of leave to an employee getting married. CEO Lauren Tickner took to Threads and claimed that she’d refused an employee two days off because she hadn’t trained a replacement. Tickner also highlighted that her company has a policy on unlimited time off that left the viewers scratching their heads at this contradiction.
Lauren Tickner posted that she denied two days of leave to an employee who was getting married. The reason behind her rejection was that they had already taken 2.5 weeks off and had not trained their replacement to take over in their absence.
The CEO further explained that the team had two critical projects to complete. So, she has asked the employee to “find a replacement” and “train them with her daily to-dos” before going on leave. “With our unlimited time off policy, don’t ask next time!” she added.
Elaborating her company’s policy on unlimited time off, the London-based CEO wrote, “It’s called Flexible Time Off. (The opposite of micromanagement and outdated policies.)”
Under this system, employees have the chance to set their own work hours, take days off when they choose, and work wherever they want. She further explained the biggest benefit of this policy. She said, “A-Players don’t respect slackers. Anyone taking too much time off loses status,” adding that the flexible leave policy creates trusting teams.
Soon enough, the poorly-worded post went viral, garnering over 2.9 million views, prompting a cascade of reactions in the comments section. Tickner’s post has not been received well, with many users backlashing her for denying time off to an employee. She faced a storm of criticism as she constantly tried to explain her stance, with some accusing her of ‘rage baiting’ the audience.
Social media users also questioned how there can be an “unlimited” time-off policy if she’s denying wedding leave, while the rest of them asked why it was the employee’s responsibility to train a replacement for just two days.
“If your team can’t function without one person for two days, you’ve got bigger problems,” read a comment.
Another said, “As a manager, I would never. This is condescending and manipulating. “Find your replacement?” What kind of response is that? There’s no way you don’t have really high turnover. So, if they have to do all of that, what do YOU do?”
“So you offer unlimited time off but refuse time off for the biggest day of their lives? And why is it your employees job to train someone to replace them? It’s yours surely,” said another.
An individual remarked, “You’re being unreasonable. As a manager, it’s your job to find a replacement and make sure that your employees are cross-trained so that there’s coverage in a pinch.”
Responding to the backlash, Tickner said, “When I say ‘find a replacement and train them on your daily to-dos’ I literally meant: show them your checklist and have them follow it. Everything is documented.” She added, “We don’t require that. We have processes that anyone on the team can follow to get the job done. So they’d just ping someone and say, ‘Hey, could you do XYZ for me today?’ It’s very simple and efficient. Most tasks don’t need to urgently be done daily, though, so it can wait till they’re back from their day(s) away!”
However, her clarification turned out to worsen things, as users said that she was straight-up contradicting herself with her earlier statements. There were some who accused the British CEO of ‘rage-baiting’ for increased engagement, with one commenting, “This has to be engagement bait. Posting this online is not a flex. At all.”
“Train a replacement for 2 days? To get married? If your team can’t function without one person for TWO DAYS, and you can’t help with their tasks or delegate them, then you aren’t running your team very well. I hope this post was rage bait because it’s gross,” echoed a few.
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