2019 has been the year of refreshing and opening my eyes up to new things…both personally and professionally. I wrapped up a year-long session with my life coach, and I'm doing my best to break out of my workaholic tendencies (like go out for lunch on a work day more often!). I really emphasized to my team how much I want them to come along for the ride in continuing to think outside the box both in their jobs and their personal lives as well. We did an all-day brainstorming session a couple months ago to dive deep into new ideas, new ways of doing things, and what's next for Oh Joy. It was great to get everyone's feedback and have their involvement in part of that process.

Dramatic changes don't happen overnight, but just starting with ideas and conversations are the first step! There is one really fun thing that came to me that I've implemented here at Oh Joy! that I want to tell you about. While speaking at a conference for Hallmark a couple months ago, I learned about their My Five Days program in which they give their employees an additional 5 days off to learn something new. And then, I was chatting with a fellow speaker on the trip who says he gives his employees $500 a day to put towards a personal hobby or passion. As a small and self-funded company, it can be hard to offer a lot of perks because every dollar counts with the ebb and flow of the finances of a small business. But, I knew we needed something like this as a way to get the creative juices flowing…not just for all of our work at Oh Joy! but for ourselves, as people, which in turn always makes work better, too. I talk a lot in my Dream Team class about how these types of things are worth the investment because it's a way to bring joy to work which you can't always put a dollar sign on. 

So, I decided to implement what I am calling 3/300. It's basically a combo of the two examples I was inspired by. I'm giving my team 3 extra days off per year and $300 to focus on learning something new or reinvigorating a personal passion they have neglected. It can be 3 days in a row or three separate days. They must use the days and dollars within each year or they will lose them. You can't combine them with vacation or sick days, and they don't roll over from year to year. The only requirement is that they have to run the dates by me ahead of time (to make sure it works with our calendar), and they have to report back to the rest of the Oh Joy! team about what they did and what they learned.

We only recently started this, so everyone is still deciding what they are going to do, but it's been fun to hear what they are thinking about so far! For me, I want to do some sort of cooking class (or classes) so I can get better at making food for a larger group of people. I might also get my tennis game back with some lessons from a local coach! 

What do you think? Would you implement this if you had a company? Or, what would you do for your 3/300 if your boss implemented it where you work?

{Photo by Lily Glass. Written by Joy Cho. Mural by The Painted Line.}