The CEO of Scale Systems, Lauren Tickner, recently came under a lot of criticism after she turned down an employee’s application for leave to attend their wedding for two days. It emerged after Tickner posted on Threads that the employee was on leave for 2.5 weeks without training a substitute for the position. She said that the employee should ensure that someone is available to take care of the work before going on leave; she mentioned two important projects.
Tickner’s words caused quite a stir on social media, with people accusing her of encouraging a toxic workplace. The situation became worse as she posted the post, and it received more than 2.9 million views within two days; people accused her of rage-baiting, a practice of posting contents that elicit emotional reactions.
In her defence, Tickner stated that her company has a “Flexible Time Off” policy that means that employees can determine their working schedule and take time off whenever they want to. However, Tickner's contradictory statements caused confusion among the audience. Even though she rejected his application for leave, she also argued there was no reason why employees should need to ask for time off under this policy. Some people said that it is unfair to make an employee take a new person for a brief period of time while offering an open door policy on leave.
The social media users were left wondering why an employee would need to ‘train up’ someone else to cover their duties for only two days. In an effort to rectify what she had said, Tickner tried to explain that tasks could easily be swapped between members of the team, and this only further muddied the waters in regard to her previous statements.
The case demonstrates the practicality of leadership in managing operational demands and concerns, including employee's major life events such as marriage.
