How much rest will you need?
By: Meredith Lewis
How much rest will you need in the next year?
How many days a week?
How many hours a day?
Use your best guess.
That’s a hard question to answer under normal circumstances. It becomes harder when you've just been diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer. And it's harder still when the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the one asking you on an official form.
Yet that's precisely—and thankfully—the questions I encountered when applying for Paid Family and Medical Leave (FMLA). I'm fortunate to live in one of only 13 states that offer paid leave, and one that offers an intermittent approach - a leave that allows someone to report the hours they need after they've taken them.
As I tried to understand my diagnosis and potential treatment - even as doctors used MRIs and tests to locate the tumor attacking me - I started to speak to people who had faced similar diagnoses. I avoided Dr. Google, and I held close the reality that permeated every conversation: "We just don't know—what side effects you'll have, how your body will react to the chemo, when your hair will fall out, how tired you'll be, if you'll lose feeling in your fingers…"
It eventually dawned on me: the state of Massachusetts, in the way they framed their questions about rest and disconnection from work, was just affirming what my doctors, friends, and family had been saying. We just don't know.
The Journey Ahead
Jewish text teaches us that people should be flexible like a reed, not rigid like a cedar. "True strength can be found in the capacity to bend and adapt," writes Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum on the sage's advice.
But, I'm a systems person and preparation is what allows me to do my job well. On its face, intermittent leave seems to butt heads with the idea of advance notice. How can I plan for something I’ll only know about after it happens?
I've worked on more than 20 leave plans in my career to date. I have a proven method of documenting tasks, figuring out who takes them on, and even how much mental energy they take. This is my first time exploring an intermittent approach, and here’s what I’ve learned so far:
Any kind of leave of absence can feel overwhelming, and especially with a leave/diagnosis that doesn't have a set end date. Even if you don’t have the answers, sometimes just stating clearly “we just don't know yet and need to remain flexible,” can help move a hard process forward.
It’s important to identify what resources your organization and employees might need from the beginning - interim support, flexible hours, adjusted job descriptions. Then work backwards: Envision what a successful leave looks like. What kind of conditions need to be in place for everyone to thrive upon someone’s eventual return? Create a planning framework that addresses both approaches: one that anticipates the needs as leave begins, and another that imagines cultural shifts that embrace uncertainty. Can we create stability by incorporating “we just don’t know” into our plans?
Leave planning and leave taking are both a balancing act. In my role, I’ve had to think about myself as both an employee and myself as a leader of an organization. I am both the stakeholder in and the subject of this leave request. At the end of the day, I have to think about how the leave policy can be implemented to be best in service of my own rest and my own journey, even if it could feel harder for the organization. Centering the employee who is navigating the journey is the right thing for organizations to do.
Paid intermittent leave is a gift, and while still not federally mandated, it is just one important way in which organizations can proactively and creatively support and care for their employees. Just like all leaves, this kind of leave needs regular review and lots of communication - and slightly more patience, grace, and flexibility. In practice, this type of leave also teaches us all a lesson in how we can operate better in our day-to-day: rest when you need it, and don’t wait until you’re burned out.
I've been holding the notion that the rest I needed yesterday, last week, or last month may not be what I need now or tomorrow. And in doing so, I’m hoping to make and live the best leave plan possible for me and therefore, my organization.
Meredith Lewis is the Managing Director at UMass Hillel and a lecturer in the Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program at Brandeis University.