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 40 hours every week (or 80 hours every two weeks). This is to allow for alternative work schedules. See below for more info about that.

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.

Reconciliation. At the end of the week, you should calculate the number of hours you have been present. If you were present less than the expected hours, you should report time off.

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.

• Rocks: Time spent crushing the rocks you setup for yourself each quarter.
• Meetings: Status meetings. One-on-one meetings.
• Fun: BNBIRL, Final Fridays.
• Business Development: Reaching out to potential clients, pursuing leads, working on this playbook.
• Continuing education: Full-time employees can take advantage of up to 2 hours of continuing education each week.
• Apprenticeship program: Guiding or pairing with someone in the apprenticeship program. Reviewing their pull requests.
• DevOps: Setting up your computer. Working on BNB's DevOps platform at large. Making technology better for the BNB team as a whole.

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. Time off is captured differently in EverHour: you use the "Schedule" functionality. Please put in the request in EverHour and then ask your manager to approve it (you can do this via Slack or via the "Send Email" in EverHour). You should also communicate any planned time off with your team.

EverHour limits tracking of time off to quarter day increments. If you need it, round your time up or down, the decision is up to you. The intent is to do our best to manage availability expectations with the rest of the team.

Time off comes in four forms:

Paid time off. Your contract includes the number of days you get for PTO each year. Any remaining days at the end of the year roll over. To encourage a healthy work/life balance, we recommend that you use all your PTO each year.

Personal leave. We allow for personal leave during the day. Personal leave is intended to provide you a way to do things that must be done during work hours. For example:

• medical / dental / professional appointment that can only happen during work hours
• a personal or family emergency
• sick days

Personal leave does not count towards your PTO.

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. The purpose of paid parental leave is to enable the employee to care for and bond with a newborn or a newly adopted or newly placed child. Examples of what this 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

Parental leave does not count towards your PTO.

Alternative work schedule. We allow for a alternative work week schedule. For example:

• you could work "nine nines" (9 hour days for 9 days every 2 weeks)
• you could work "four tens" (10 hour days for 4 days every 1 week)

Marking this time in your schedule is a helpful reminder for everyone else on the team. If you are interested in a flexible work schedule, please talk with you manager. Flexible work schedule does not count towards your PTO.