CSM Paid Time Off

View the CSM Handbook homepage for additional CSM-related handbook pages.

---

As part of GitLab’s paid time off policy, team members are encouraged to take time off. However, as customer-facing team members this can feel difficult, so this page is intended to help guide CSMs to ensure they can regularly take time off, avoid burnout, and keep their customers successful.

Before you go

To take PTO, please follow the guidelines in the PTO policy and be sure to enter your time off in Time Off by Deel.

Before your PTO begins, please follow these additional guidelines:

1. Establish coverage for when you’ll be out.
2. Communicate your time off to colleagues.
3. Notify customers and adjust plans as necessary.
4. Set up your email autoresponder.
5. Review our PTO communication guidelines.

Establish Coverage

When a CSM is out of office, they can rely on their SAEs/AEs and/or SAs to lead customer meetings or respond to requests. Make sure your account teams know in advance that you’ll be out and for how long so they can be prepared.

You can ask another CSM to cover for you as well, but they likely don’t have the same context as the account team, so you’ll need to brief them on any important initiatives.

For any specific customer needs (escalating tickets, logging issues, etc.), the CSM should rely on either the SA or backup CSM, and higher-level or sales-related items should be handled by the SAE/AE.

Be sure to confirm with whoever will be covering for you the dates you’ll be out to ensure they don’t also have PTO scheduled or other conflicts. Then, add them and their coverage responsibilities into Time Off by Deel.

Backup CSMs

Backup CSMs should not be expected to support the entire book of business of the vacationing CSM; however, they should stay abreast of what is going on with those accounts during the coverage period. For example, you should respond to any customers that reach out to you, but it’s also recommended to spend 5 minutes each day of coverage checking if the CSM has been pinged in either Slack or in GitLab.com collaboration projects. Here are some tips on how to do this quickly and easily:

Slack:

1. Use the search bar and search the person’s name, then review any pings they may have gotten and answer appropriately.
2. Alternatively, to automatically be notified if the CSM is pinged, click on GitLab at the top left of your Slack, go to Preferences, and enter the CSM’s Slack handle in the My keywords box. (Remember to remove this when they return!)

GitLab.com:

1. To see what pings the CSM has received, go to GitLab.com and in the search bar search the CSM’s GitLab handle.
2. Then, filter by issues and sort by descending creation date and review any new issues.
3. If you’re familiar with what accounts the CSM has, you can also go to the region’s collaboration project group, go to the issue list, sort by descending creation date, and review if any new issues have been opened in their customers’ projects. This is useful to catch things if the customer does not tag the CSM but is not an expectation.

Please note that while any simple questions or requests should be answered when possible, if it’s more complicated or will require more work than you are able to do, please still comment in response to the customer letting them know that their CSM is on PTO and will return on X date. This way, the customer has an update and an idea of when they might expect an answer. This is especially helpful on GitLab.com as there is no native out of office responder.

Time Off by Deel will ping you the day before the CSM returns. Be sure to let the CSM know about any requests or situations that occurred when they return so they can follow up, as well as any actions you took while they were out.

Americas CSMA PTO Buddy Program

The Americas CSMA team operates a PTO buddy program where each team member is paired with a peer to serve as each other’s regular PTO backup. The goal of this program is to allow customers to become familiar with the backup so they feel they can rely on them, while giving the backup enough ongoing familiarity with the accounts to cover any active or emerging initiatives confidently.

The program also removes the uncertainty of finding ad-hoc coverage for every PTO — each team member always knows who their buddy is. It allows SAs to remain focused on pre-sales work, and it gives team members broader exposure to how their peers engage with customers, improving the team’s overall efficiency and range of thought.

Creating a Coverage Issue

For each account that needs active attention during your PTO, create an issue in your team’s collaboration project and assign it to your PTO buddy. A well-prepared coverage issue is what allows your buddy to act confidently and in the customer’s best interest without having to dig through Gainsight, prior meeting notes, or Slack history.

The quality of your coverage issue directly determines whether your buddy can cover you — or just hold the line.

What to include:

Customer Overview Start with a brief but honest summary of the relationship and where the account stands. Your buddy should finish reading this section and immediately understand the customer’s engagement posture, maturity level, and what they expect from GitLab. Include:

• What the customer is focused on right now and why it matters to them
• The relationship dynamic — are they strategic, early-stage, technical, exec-driven?
• Any relevant recent history (migrations completed, initiatives launched, prior commitments made)
• One or two sentences on how to engage well with this customer (e.g., “they expect precise answers; taking questions offline is normal and expected”)

Active Priorities List the workstreams that are actively in motion. For each one, briefly explain where things stand, what the customer expects to happen, and whether any action is needed during coverage. Not everything needs attention — the goal is to make sure your buddy understands what’s live so they’re not caught off-guard.

Key Contacts Provide both the GitLab account team and the key customer contacts. For customer contacts, go beyond titles — include a sentence on how each person engages: who drives technical questions, who sets strategic tone, who to loop in vs. who makes decisions. This is the context that turns a contact list into something actually useful.

Action Items During Coverage Be specific. List any meetings, check-ins, or customer touchpoints that will occur during your PTO with the date, time, and what your buddy needs to do (run the call, take notes, monitor for specific topics, etc.). If a meeting is covered by someone else or cancelled, say so.

Standing Context (No Action Expected) Just as important as what needs to happen is what does not need to happen. Document items your buddy should be aware of — ongoing workstreams, pending investigations, background discussions — but that don’t need to be advanced during coverage. This prevents well-intentioned but premature action on things you’re actively managing.

Escalation Path Identify who your buddy should contact if something escalates — typically your manager — and describe the specific conditions that warrant an escalation (customer frustration, commercial risk, relationship concerns). Don’t make your buddy guess.

Resources Link to the customer’s collaboration project, relevant epics or success plan, account notes, and any other artifacts your buddy would need to act or get context quickly.

---

The goal of a coverage issue is not to document everything — it’s to give your buddy enough context to represent you and the customer relationship well for the duration of your absence. When in doubt, include it.

Communicate your time off plan to colleagues

In accordance with our “no ask, must tell” policy, ensure that you are informing the relevant team members of your out-of-office plan. This includes:

• SAE/AE and SA for the accounts you cover
• Backup CSM
• Your manager (via Time Off by Deel)

Please ensure that everyone knows about the following items during your scheduled PTO:

• Customer meetings
• Ongoing initiatives that will need attention
• Who will be responsible for different types of customer communication (e.g. technical issues, license concerns, etc.)

Notify customers and make necessary changes

Reach out to all of your customers to inform them of your upcoming time off, and who will be covering their account while you are away. Preferably this should be done during the cadence call prior to your PTO starting and reiterated with a follow-up email, but if that is not possible then send an email with all of the relevant details.

If a cadence call falls during your PTO, you can decide to either cancel or reschedule. If there is an emergency or the call cannot be moved, the people covering for you should lead the call. It is the CSM’s responsibility to prep in advance whomever will lead the call.

Email templates

To simplify communicating out of office details to customers, email templates are available. These ensure that all of the relevant information is provided. Please use these as guidance for your customer communication when OOO.