More and more companies are setting aside extra personal days for workers, not for a doctor’s appointment or to run errands, but because of stressful events outside of the workplace.
The move to offer these types of personal days is one of many steps company executives say they are taking to address concerns about employee mental health. They also offer company-wide mental health days and on-site respite rooms.
These measures reflect the belief of leaders that addressing mental health directly with their workers is a crucial way to retain and attract the best employees in a tight labor market.
“Mental health is the workplace crisis of our time,” said Lynee Luque, NerdWalletIt is
chief of staff. “We don’t think taking care of mental health is something that should just be lumped in with PTO or sick days.”
Employees of NerdWallet, a personal finance company, get unlimited paid time off, eight hours per shift of paid time to volunteer, and a five-week sabbatical after five years on the job. Leaders feared that would not be enough, Ms. Luque said.
For example, NerdWallet recently started offering four self-care days each year. The idea is for the whole company to stop working on the same day to ensure everyone feels they can disconnect completely.
They also don’t want employees to worry about going back to an “even larger pile of work” and shutting down the entire company ensures that, Ms Luque said.
Numerous studies are one of the factors that motivate companies to maneuver. Data recently released by Gallup shows disengagement at historic highs and it is widely attributed to “not feeling supported at work”. Meanwhile, studies from the American Psychological Association and Ernst & Young found that employees who suffer from common mental health issues such as anxiety, burnout and depression are more likely to quit.
Replacing them can be time-consuming and expensive. A study from the MIT Sloan School of Management shows that filling someone’s position can cost up to twice that employee’s annual salary.
“Employees are looking for jobs that meet their mental health needs at record levels,” said Jennifer Moss, a consultant who works with Fortune 500 companies and others to help them define their work culture and author of a book on burnout.
In 2022, Alma began offering two days of paid “time out” for employees who need to process traumatic events outside of the workplace, said Nailah Banks, senior vice president of people and culture at mental health start-ups.
The idea first surfaced in conversations about how best to support employees after George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020 and gained traction amid other incidents that summer. Initially, Alma held group support sessions with a mental health professional, but eventually the company decided that employees should be able to choose how best to take care of themselves.
Alma is starting to collect data on how people are using sunset days.
Margaret Bonaparte, senior communications manager at Alma, said she intended to use the work to distract from the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last year. But after joining her first meeting of the day, Ms Bonaparte said she found it difficult to concentrate. His boss noticed this and recommended that he take a day off.
“You don’t know when these times are going to come,” Ms Bonaparte said.
Adobe’s craft room in its Seattle office, where employees can take a break and create art. The wellness room at Adobe’s headquarters in San Jose, Calif., is where workers can meditate alone or with the workplace club, Project Breath. ADOBE
Employers say the decision to offer these programs comes at a cost, such as hiring outside consultants or building new facilities. There’s also possible resentment that can build up in those who don’t take those extra days, as it could add to their workload.
Additionally, many workers in industries like medicine or other front-line jobs simply don’t have the flexibility to offer some of these alternatives.
For Alma and others, however, it’s worth that possible cost for now.
“The idea that people should be male or female is not a foreign concept to me,” Ms Banks said. “But when you put a policy like this in place, it builds trust.”
For those who cannot take a day off at any time, some employers like LinkedIn and Adobe Inc.
have created on-site respite rooms, where staff members can escape the open office concept to decompress and recharge or process a difficult conversation.
Joseph White, director of design strategy at MillerKnoll Inc.,
a collection of office and home design brands, claims workplace phone booths were an early iteration, followed by meditation rooms. Post-pandemic, they feature a soft color palette and biophilic design that incorporates elements of nature like sound and plants. They also ban electronics.
At Adobe, there’s a craft room and outdoor basketball court in its Seattle office, meditation pods at headquarters in San Jose, Calif., and private music rooms in several outposts.
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Eric Kline, head of global workplace experience at Adobe, and his team are creating quiet rooms. Coming out of the pandemic, Kline says there’s a need to create spaces for employees who aren’t used to interacting with large groups after being isolated for so long.
“They will be a space where employees facing tougher times can find themselves on their own, be a place of reflection, or help change their brain cycle,” Kline said.
When the Austin, Texas office of software maker Atlassian Corp.
was redesigned during the pandemic, the company included a non-denominational prayer room that includes a foot wash station for Muslim employees who pray during the workday.
“It’s a Zen interpretation of a prayer hall as opposed to a traditional cathedral with religious paraphernalia,” said Atlassian team lead Annie Dean.
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