Employees around the world are in need of policies that support mental and emotional health amid the pandemic. Remote work increased the working hours worldwide and people are closer to burnouts than ever before. As a response, several companies have introduced extra days off for their employees. LinkedIn for example, shut down for a full work week, giving nearly all 16k employees worldwide five extra days off. Since last summer, Google has given workers two days extra paid holidays. Dosh grants employees self-chosen long weekends. This is a new approach to tackling more than a year of remote work due to the pandemic.
Companies are aware that their employees are exhausted from working in the pandemic. Many companies conduct wellbeing surveys among their employees. LinkedIn has found out like that, that the basic wellbeing was trending down. Their employees were working longer hours, and they were not taking their vacation time. In addition to the extra days off they started a campaign called “surprise and delight moments”. From time to time, they surprised their employees with a Friday off, or a day of no meetings.
This element of surprise has a good effect. It is unexpected because the company doesn’t have to do it. Therefore, it implies that they really care. People see the company as being responsive when things happen spontaneously, which again implies that the company cares.
In addition to increasing the wellbeing of the employees, these initiatives can help a healthier relationship between employer and employees. In a post-pandemic age, what employees really want is to be taken care of not just as employees, but as people. The era of thinking about performance and productivity divorced from the rest of life is over. Work now has to be considered as part of people’s lives.
However, very spontaneously communicated holidays can result in stress for some people. Parents for example have very regimented schedules. The short notice may cause caretakers stress, as they cannot take advantage of the rare time off. Surprise time off is much more useful for people who are single and have a spontaneous lifestyle. Even though any holiday is theoretically welcome, the way in which some companies deploy it, is not necessarily helpful to all workers in the same way.
In addition, some urgent work cannot be put on hold. Client meetings or jobs that need to be performed every day might be hard to pause without advanced planning. For others, work may simply pile up, and workers might return with anxiety. Therefore, a pop-up holiday meant to reduce stress could actually do the opposite. With some notice beforehand to make plans and use the time off more effectively, it is a great idea however.
