Companies are providing staff with paid time off in order to avoid and remedy burnout, with dating app Bumble and professional services network KPMG instating this policy.
Staff at Bumble, consisting of around 700 employees worldwide, have been given a week’s paid leave to de-stress and spend time offline.
In a Tweet that has since been deleted, Head of Editorial Content at Bumble, Clare O’Conner, explained that the CEO “correctly intuited our collective burnout”.
The firm has also been credited for offering other benefits linked to wellbeing such as private medical insurance, gym memberships and the ability to work from home.
However, other companies such as KPMG have also chosen to give staff an additional day off as part of wider plans to protect wellbeing and push for a more flexible way of working.
Around 16,000 people working for the professional services network were given Monday 21st June off in order to give staff time to recuperate.
Further, the firm unveiled they would be giving employees two and a half hours off every week over the summer, to give people time away from work and to re-energise.
As part of this, workers are given the choice whether to take this time off in the morning or afternoon, dependent on what better suits their needs.
KPMG have invested over £44 million to promote hybrid working and foster a culture of flexibility.
Jon Holt, Chief Executive at KPMG UK, said:
We trust our people. Our new way of working will empower them and enable them to design their own working week. The pandemic has proven it’s not about where you work, but how you work.
We have listened to our people and designed this strategy around our staff and how they can best support our clients.
Alistair Dornan, Director, Organisational Wellbeing Consulting, Gallagher, also expressed the advantages of placing employee wellbeing at the forefront of company strategy:
Now more than ever, businesses need to actively prioritise employee mental wellbeing – especially the very real effects of burn out. The people within an organisation are now the differentiator, so it is vital visible steps are taken by leaders to prevent excessive employee stress. Taking tangible action – such as fully flexible working, offering mental health days or providing access to professional resources – sends a credible signal to employees that sometimes, it’s ok not to be ok.
In fact, statistics indicate that mental health-related absence drops by 19 per cent when senior leadership addresses the stigma surrounding it. As a business or HR leader, it is incredibly important to visibly support your employees because your future workforce will take notice.
Monica Sharma is an English Literature graduate from the University of Warwick. As Editor for HRreview, her particular interests in HR include issues concerning diversity, employment law and wellbeing in the workplace. Alongside this, she has written for student publications in both England and Canada. Monica has also presented her academic work concerning the relationship between legal systems, sexual harassment and racism at a university conference at the University of Western Ontario, Canada.
