With 1 Sentence, Patagonia Just Gave a Masterclass on How to Treat Your People | Hacker News Reader

With 1 Sentence, Patagonia Just Gave a Masterclass on How to Treat Your People

inc.com

126 pointsdylan60490 comments

They also don't want to be associated with the finance bros:

Patagonia has said it will no longer market merchandise to financial firms through its corporate sales program -- a potential threat to the popular menswear look dubbed the "Midtown uniform"

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/midtown-uniform-patagonia-will-...

Instead continuing to market to a particular brand of Northwestern hipster. My friend in Portland refers to the brand as “Patagucci” which I find to be rather amusing and accurate

Ngl, the Patagucci corporate swag boom has been great. I could get some solid hiking gear for pennies at Goodwill or corporate events.

Their prices are high relative to other outdoor brands (hence “Patagucci”) but the quality is absolutely top notch when compared with their peers. Every product comes with a lifetime warranty as well.

People are no doubt paying a premium to support the companies various environmental causes as well.

Why single out finance? Matching fleece jacket crews with the bro vibe could be from any company.

Good for them. And great of the Patagonia mgmt to give them off.

I am myself off - the company I work for gives us paid time off (not deducted from our paid vacation) from Dec 22 to January 8. Each year. Apart from our 35 days of PTO. Plus 4 days to attend school events. Apart from German public holidays. Oh, and we work less during the spring and summer months. We go down from 38 hours per week to 35. German engineering manufacturing company - 250 employees. Family owned - 5 generations.

US startup I work for is also shut down this week and has a very liberal unlimited PTO policy. I took about 6 weeks of PTO this year, for a variety of reasons, and no one asked a question about it.

A lot of folks in the office work 35 hour weeks, sometimes less, but we are meeting or exceeding our company goals (which were already aggressive).

I think this as really good way to run a company... everyone is always firing on all cylinders when we're working... and when we need a break, we take one.

It's weird to me that this isn't more common in tech. Because we're working with our minds there is not a good direct link to hours worked and output. Certainly No one is constantly able to have 8hr highly productive days (or any) so why not optimize towards high efficiency? Doesn't running "your machine" down just end up creating more, often compounding, (usually small) mistakes that only then need to be fixed later? Isn't what makes humans particularly unique is the ability to do complex and long term planning?

Our company also closes this week. The best thing about it is that you get back and Slack hasn’t piled up in your absence so it’s as close to a true break as you can get.

I have to think about this sometimes. I worked in the feds a while ago, and the whole Federal Gov gets Christmas Holidays (Day, NY) (plus, usually you've got so much comp time [hour overtime -> hour comp time] built up anyways, the rest is paid.) And "In Lieu of" Holidays (if you miss the exact holiday). A lot of the time the President would usually also grant a half day or day extra (Christmas Eve).

I didn't think it was all that incredible at the time, yet 11 yearly paid holidays, really easy to earn comp. time, and kind of silly layers of special pay when you work tough shifts (working Sunday + Night Shift + Overtime + Holiday? A few special modifiers...) is really pretty incredible compared to some places.

Also, weird to see that Slack has just turned into the new email. "Should I even worry about my messages, or just let em pile up?"

Nice thing about email is Select-All + Delete

CTRL|CMD + Shift + A. ESC ESC ESC ESC.... Easy way to see all unread messages and mark as read.

>"For the last week of this year, we are shutting down our stores, warehouse and offices in the United States and Canada because our people need a break."

"The earth is our shareholder." — CEO Patagonia [he wrote an article with this title]

What a fantastic operating philosophy — reminds me of India's TaTa Group (which donates 2/3rds ~~profits~~ "equity dividends" to charities [1]).

[1] EDIT: see comment below

> which donates 2/3rds profits to charities

Assuming you mean this:

"66% of Tata Sons’ equity is held by the Tata Trusts and dividends flow directly to support the philanthropic work of the Trusts."

"66% equity dividends" is a world away from "2/3rds profits" and "Tata Trusts" is a long way from "charities". I mean, it's better than most companies but it's almost certainly a tax optimisation and/or money hiding operation.

Thank you for this clarification and perspective. I have edited my above-comment.

>I mean, it's better than most companies but it's almost certainly a tax optimisation and/or money hiding operation.

Extremely part-time, but I assist a wealth manager's charitable allocations FOR EXACTLY THIS REASON. Not a dollar more gets donated than is deducted.

Reads like a Patagonia puff piece

Inc actually does this sort of madlibs article all the time

"In $NUMBER (words/sentences), $FOO taught a masterclass in $BAR"

e.g. In one Google search, see how Inc gives a masterclass in the art of clickbait headlines: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22masterclass+in%22+site%3A...

Holy shit this is hilarious!

I wonder how much it costs to get a "masterclass" headline in Inc.

The cynic in me wonders what effect this has on percentage of merchandise returned.

It is. Just like when lots of outlets published puff pieces on how Patagonia "gave away the company to fight climate change". Don't get me wrong, Patagonia definitely is working to help the environment, but the 98% of shares owned by the charitable trust have no voting rights and the transition offers big tax benefits for the owner's family.

Exactly this.

The Chouinard family still completely controls the company. They may not technically be billionaires in the sense that they can liquidate the capital for their personal benefit, but they remain billionaires in the possibly more important context of capital control and influence that nets them massive power in the highest social circles.

The difference between owning a billion dollar company and the deduction from donating a billion dollar company is pretty huge. Donating the company was certainly not a financial benefit for the family in any way.

advertisements ?!

on _my_ hacker news ?!?!

B&H and Adorama, photography stores, are closed on Saturdays because the owners are (Hasidic?) Jewish and do not work (make money) on the Sabbath. This includes (IIRC) online sales as well.

For a major holiday like Passover they are closed for the entire week.

Yeah, B&H doesn't allow you to check out online on shabbat. But you can browse the site and add items to your cart.

It'd be amusing if the shopping cart was entirely client-side during shabbat.

It'd be more amusing if you could follow links on the website, but not push buttons.

Sun Microsystems used to give employees the week between Christmas and New Year off, it was called Winter Break - probably a relic of its academic roots. It was its own thing, you didn't need to take PTO for it. I wonder which large employers still do this. All bets are off if you're doing billable hours. Retail is its own creature, though, you need to be open to make sales, so Patagonia is an outlier in their class.

I think Apple gives all days off between Christmas and New Year. That's for employees, but not for contractors.

A lot of automotive factories in the US do a week or two shutdown over the holidays, but it's a "temporary layoff", not paid time off.

IIRC it was a relic of their background as a hardware manufacturer — if everyone was off for a week at the same time, they could shut down entire lines, thus saving on the baseline costs of running their manufacturing processes.

Yep, I think Boeing still has a paid break.

While all of us with the luxury of having time off enjoy that, let's be thankful to those still working essential services like grocery stores and emergency departments. Also people in coffee shops, bars, and other entertainment venues that all the people with time off frequent.

This reads a bit like an ad

Also, it mentions no precedent, when REI started #optoutside in 2015 (and received a lot of positive PR). Now I wonder who did this before REI?

Even when Patagonia is closed, their items are being sold by other retailers, so it seems like a way smaller sacrifice than REI closing on Black Friday when it will lose sales to competitors. Patagonia's thirst for PR annoys me and detracts from their credibility (some of their products are pretty good though..).

For what it's worth, Patagonia is a nonprofit now, and REI is still a co-op. They could just genuinely hold these values, not cynically use them as marketing (surprising in this day and age).

Both companies also do a lot of local outreach and environmental sponsorships. I've been a beneficiary of several Patagonia programs, as well as friends and colleagues I've known in the environmental sector. They do good work, and as far as I can tell, it's actually pretty different from North Face, Black Diamond, Arcteryx, etc. Patagonia and REI are the more community-oriented companies in this space.

It could be construed as that but company's that do positive things like this should be celebrated.

It's fine if it's convenient for staff to have to take PTO at a time to suit the company

For some that won't work out at well. My partner has to work shifts all over the Christmas period. I choose to work the same days as her so we can enjoy our days off together when she isn't working

From TFA it sounds like the employees are all being paid for the week without having to burn their PTO.

Back in the 80's almost all the SV tech companies close from Christmas to New Years. A very civilized practice.

I really wish more companies would use this strategy, it works so much better for everyone involved.

Flagged, really? WTF is it with this site?

truly the mr beast of outdoor clothing brands

Tells a lot about where we are at in 2023, when closing a store-chain for a week after the busiest time of the year warrants a news article. Generally especially in tech people assume that output correlates 1:1 with the time spent, when in reality, working past 40h a week or skipping holiday breaks probably results in diminishing returns from a macro perspective.

Take some time off, read a book, ponder and think.

I find it surprising that this is a news story. Most things around here (Spain) are closed around Christmas and everything moves very slow overall as lots of people are on holiday. Is it not common for companies to have a break around Christmas in the US?

It's not common for companies to have many breaks at all in the US — paid time off is a rare luxury for many workers here. The country's culture is riddled with Protestant views on work and its virtue, which when combined with our rampant individualism and disdain for public works leads to The Hustle being an idolized state.

It has its upsides and downsides. Upsides include the country generally being pretty darn industrious and a hotbed for entrepreneurship, and having good socioeconomic mobility prospects for those who (A) don't start out genuinely poor, and (B) are willing to be obsessive about work. Downsides include burnout, dispassionate employees, and an icky tendency to associate poverty with immorality and wealth with morality. I personally believe we could definitely stand to move a little further in the European direction when it comes to labor culture and laws here in the USA.

I mean, US consumer culture also supports it. I have to admit that my brain went there yesterday. I got my kid Gift A for Christmas, and I should have also remembered to get Accessory B to go with it. But obviously most stores were closed. I briefly thought to myself "Hmm, I bet I could get it overnighted from Amazon--we know Bezos doesn't give his minions even a microsecond of time off!" But then I calmed down and acknowledged it's not urgent and the kid can wait until we get around to it. First World Problem but it kind of illustrates the US mindset. I was almost ready to get disappointed that STORES were not open and available to me on a widely-recognized holiday. Good grief!

I had a minor conniption when I slowly realized that all stores would be closed between 4PM on the 24th through 6AM on the 26th. OH MY GOD what if I ran out of milk, or something I stupidly forgot. Then I got a hold of myself and looked in the fridge and pantry - whatever it was, it could wait, there are plenty of substitutes. I feel that we Americans are over-acclimated and conditioned to want and get the specific thing and quickly, we're eroding our ability to adapt, be inventive, think different. It's very convenient here, then I spend time in Europe and I was always surprised to rediscover that most shops close after 6, you can show up in the middle of the day to a shop and there will be a sign saying they're closed for 2 weeks, or back in 2 hours. It was perplexing to try and find a Paris restaurant opened Sunday evening, because why wouldn't you be opened for diners on the weekend? That's when people go out, is it not? Not sure if I would make the trade, there's something to be said for the convenience of being able to shop outside a very strict window of retail hours.

A perspective from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean: a company I used to work for moved from n days paid leave, freely distributable, to n - m days freely distributable plus m days fixed in that Christmas/NYE week with its horrible weather, thankyouverymuch.

It’s uncommon in low paying retail jobs, yes. It is the busiest time of year.

It’s much more common in corporate jobs. So many people take vacation at that time that you can easily be unable to accomplish much at work otherwise. So either taking some of your vacation then or just having the whole place shut down is really typical.

Let's just say that my initial reaction was: they must be dealing with staffing shortages. While it is fairly common for people to have time off around the holidays in Canada (which this decision also affects), the privilege rarely extends to retail employees. If anything, they are expected to work longer and harder between Christmas and New Years because it is still considered part of the peak retail season.

Same in France. The company where I work is closed, at least offices. It is mandatory holiday, except if you have a specific job (customer support, some accounting-stuff maybe - not sure), etc.

Are their employees hourly? Losing a week of wages at Xmas may not be much of a gift ...

> That's right, the entire company gets the week off--paid, of course.

Via the fourth sentence of the article.

Thanks--i somehow missed that

It mentions they shut down their stores, warehouses, and offices. Did they shut down their factories too? There’s no mention of that and I suspect if they did, it would have been mentioned.

Does Patagonia operate factories? I thought they were just a retailer, but I'm not super familiar with them.

They don’t operate factories. They partner with various factories around the world.

Ah, okay—thanks. Although I guess I don't know what it says about their ability to shut down those factories.

Do you know if the folks working in their factories celebrate this holiday? Maybe they'd prefer a different time off that coincides with their holiday?

Doesn't China basically shut down over Golden Week anyway?

"It sources from 14 countries..." https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=8997844...

golden week seems to refer to three holidays, chinese new year, may 1st and national day in october.

during chinese new year the country pretty much does shut down. the other holidays less so.

I was curious what this could be about, since I didn’t think Patagonia was a country/state/district/administrative area/whatever but a more general region there at the bottom of South America, and… oh; some company named itself after the region. Kathmandu, Patagonia, wonder if any other companies in this niche have pinched some other place’s name.

Me too, was expecting something about joined government between argentine and chile

Wait til you hear about Amazon

You mean like every single car company: Yukon, Denali, Cherokee, Bonneville, Pontiac, on and on and on.

Wait till you year about companies naming themselves after deities. Oh no, the horror!!

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