Tracking time

A paramount aspect of our work is our ability to make good use of the time we spend at the office.

We work better as a team. It's good for us to be available to help each other out when necessary. As such, we try to be present with each other at roughly the same time. But we also strive to have affordances for everyday life and alternative work schedules.

Hours of presence

Presence. Presence means you are generally available and working on Brand New Box projects. Your contract includes the number of hours you are expected to be present. This time should be logged into EverHour.

If you work full-time, you are expected to be present for a total of 6.85hrs/day on average.

You are expected to be present during our work week, which is Monday through Friday. You are expected to be present during our core work hours of 10am - 3pm CST.

Absence. For the sake of illustration, absence means you are not available and not working on Brand New Box projects. This time should not be logged in EverHour. For example:

• 🍔 lunch
• 🚗 running an errand
• 👶🏻 watching your kids while your partner takes a break
• 🌴 time off (see below for more about this)

If you do step away during the day, please take advantage of Slack's status icon so that other folks know that you are not available.

Balance System. Any hours you work over 6.85 hours per day go into a positive balance. You must maintain a balance that is always greater than or equal to 0.

• New hires have a 65 working day (3 month) grace period during which the balance may be negative, but it must be brought to zero or positive by day 66.
• When you leave BNB, any positive balance will be added to your final paycheck at a rate of 40hrs/week.
• There is no maximum balance, but if you accumulate 300+ hours, we'll discuss work/life balance expectations.
• This system runs continuously - there's no annual reset on January 1st.

Hours of work

These are the hours you actually spend on work tasks and are tracked via EverHour. Keep in mind that EverHour is NOT a tool for controlling employees. We use it in order to be 100% transparent towards our clients and to improve our time management skills. If you are worried about it, reach out to your manager and they will be able to answer all of your questions!

Client projects. Our EverHour account is tightly coupled with our GitHub account. Each project in Github is a project in EverHour. Each issue in GitHub is a task in EverHour.

Most of these tasks are billable, meaning any time you track will show up in the client's invoice at the end of the month. This means we need to be extra careful not to bill any time we don't spend working for a client.

Some client work is not is not billable. This distinction is handled within EverHour by a project manager and you generally do not need to wory about making the distinction.

Internal projects. In addition to the client projects, EverHour also contains several projects and tasks for internal use. These tend to change over time as we add new projects and restructure existing ones.

• Status Meetings: Daily status meetings with the team.
• 1:1 Mentoring Meetings: One-on-one meetings with mentors.
• Meetup retreats: We get together in person 3-4 times a year to do fun things as a team.

Time off

We love time off. Part of our culture is that we work to live. We have a lot of freedom when it comes to time off.

When possible, please request time off a week in advance so we can plan for it. You should also communicate any planned time off with your team by mentioning it in the daily status meeting, and updating your Google Calendar.

Time off comes in two forms:

Time off using your balance. Use your accumulated balance for any time off needs. As long as your balance remains at zero or above, you can take time off as needed. This replaces traditional PTO, sick leave, mental health days, and other time-off categories.

Parental leave. Our Parental Leave Pledge provides paid parental leave to full-time employees surrounding the birth of their child or the placement of a child with them in connection with adoption or foster care.

• Maternity leave: 450 hour credit (equivalent to 3 months)
• Paternity leave: 150 hour credit (equivalent to 1 month)

Examples of what parental leave time might include:

• attending antenatal appointments
• attending adoption or foster care appointments
• putting finishing touches on the nursery before the baby comes
• recovering and relaxing at home with your new baby