Time for a break

Regular breaks keep everyone well, and Folke is built to help you take them. A few small things nudge you along, and none of them tell anyone what you haven’t booked.

Since your last break

The last tile on Home and My Leave counts the days since your last break ended, with a line that changes as time goes on:

Days since your last break	What it says
Up to 7	Feeling refreshed?
8 to 14	Hope you’re well rested.
15 to 30	Time to start planning the next?
31 to 60	Been a while - maybe plan one in?
Over 60	Time to book a break?

A break is approved leave of two working days or more, so a long weekend counts but a single day off doesn’t. Bookings with only days you don’t work between them, like a Friday and the Monday after, count as one. Sick and compassionate leave are never a break. While you’re on a break, the tile says “You’re on a break” and “Enjoy it.”

The time-off nudge

If it’s been a while, Folke sends you a “Time for a break?” email, and a notification to any phone or computer where you’ve turned them on. It goes when all of these are true:

• it’s been 60 days or more since your last break ended, or since your start date if you haven’t had one. It’s the same break as the tile above, so the two always agree, and time off sick never stops it
• you have nothing booked or waiting for approval ahead
• you have some allowance left

You’ll get it at most once every 30 days, and it only ever goes to you, never your manager. If your organisation has Folke in Slack with direct messages turned on, it can come as a Slack message too.

To turn it off, use Time-off nudge under Settings > Notifications > Your Leave. It has a switch for each of Email, Push and, where your organisation sends Slack messages, Slack.

Around your time off

• Two weeks before: a reminder ten working days before your approved leave starts, a good time to start thinking about what needs handing over.
• Three working days before: a second reminder, to wrap things up so you can properly switch off.
• While you’re off: a strip across the top of Folke says so, like “You’re on annual leave”, with your dates.
• When you’re back: a “Welcome back” email on the morning of your first working day back, skipping weekends, bank holidays and closures. There’s no rush to catch up on it all at once.
• Bank holidays: a heads-up three working days before each one.

The two reminders before your leave count working days for your organisation. Leave that starts on a day it doesn’t work, like a Saturday, a bank holiday or a closure day, is reminded as if it started on the working day before.

In Notifications, both reminders before your leave come under Leave reminder, and Welcome back and Bank holiday reminder have switches of their own. Leave booked for a company closure doesn’t get the reminders or the welcome back.

Sick and compassionate leave

Sick and compassionate leave are time away, not rest, so they never count as a break: not on the Since your last break tile, not for the time-off nudge, and not in what org admins see below. Someone back from a week off sick is still gently reminded that a real break is overdue.

How admins see breaks Pro

Org admins on Pro can see how long each team member goes between breaks, on their page under Team, and across the whole team in Analytics. It uses the same idea of a break as everything above.

It’s there to notice who’s overdue a rest, never to count anyone’s unused days.