LinkedIn, Nike and Addison Group adopt company-wide closure trend to improve employee well-being

Supporting the mental health of employees has never been more vital, as the pandemic has blurred the lines between personal and professional, causing an epidemic of overworked and overstressed staff.

In an effort to combat this mental health crisis, more HR leaders have begun to facilitate and advocate for company-wide days off. Organizations like Nike and LinkedIn have provided their workers with week-long mental health breaks, where offices are shut down to allow their employees a chance to rest and recharge. Addison Group, a professional services firm, has followed their lead, and offered employees a week off to recuperate after seeing the effects of long-term stress on their workforce.

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“You have to look at the wellness of your employees,” says Tom Moran, CEO of Addison Group. “With all that's been going with the pandemic and all the businesses that we deal with each day, the amount of pressure it puts on employees, and the amount of time that they have to continue to work is unbelievable. It's very hard to disengage, disconnect, and fully unplug from work, which is creating an ever looming feeling of unrest.”

Employees are feeling greater pressure to remain connected to work, especially those who work remotely. Sixty-seven percent of workers surveyed by Indeed say their burnout has worsened due to the pandemic, and 38% of remote workers are more likely to say their burnout has worsened over the course of the pandemic, compared to 28% of those working on-site.

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Employees at Addison Group were given five consecutive days off, beginning Sept. 2, a decision that was carefully considered by the CEO and leadership team. Moran says he had to weigh the impact to the business against what this would mean for employees. In the end though, he realized that the only way the business can do well is if it is run by employees who are happy and mentally well.

“I was talking to my management team and we discussed the fact that sometimes you have to put employees before profits,” he says. “We realized that it's time to just give people a chance to unplug and so we closed all operations, all brands, all offices for five consecutive days to just let people unwind. Giving employees a break gives them a chance to come back stronger.”

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For other employers contemplating offering mental health days, Moran says managers need to take a pulse of the organization to really determine what employees are going through and what they need. Employers have to be prepared for the unknown and to make last minute decisions.

He also notes that these significant breaks don’t necessarily have to be an annual thing, nor should they be limited to once a year — it’s about dealing with the here and now. Moran says he has no current plans to continue the break next year, but will consider other options if the need arises.

“When you look around and see your employees busting their asses and feeling it all day long, you just have to make a statement,” Moran says. “To say that I'm going to plan on doing this annually, I probably have to say no, because you’ve just have to take a pulse of where your company is at that time. Maybe I’ll have to do it again around the holidays. It all depends on what the world throws at us.”