This week, if you’re one of over 6,000 employees of Spotify, you likely hit the snooze button a few more times than the thousands of other workers that got up around the world.
The online streaming company declared their “wellness week,” where they will close all offices and let their employees receive a paid week off of work.
As a blog post by Spotify CHRO Katarina Berg mentioned, “We strive to offer freedom and we feel it’s not only important but crucial to establish a safe environmental culture for our employees.” “All Spotify offices will be shut so that all of our staff members may unwind, center themselves, and do something they enjoy. With this additional week of paid time off, we intend that our employees all around the world will be able to take the time out for themselves and come back to work energized, revitalized, and refreshed.”
The company’s global head of learning and development, talent development, and community experience, Johanna Bolin Tingvall, disclosed in a post on Monday that she got up at 6 a.m. only to realize that the company had shut down.
Her post reads, “I am so grateful.! Can you imagine a firm practically closing down for a whole week to allow its employees to take care of their mental health? And they do not see it as a cost but an investment in their employees.”
Another employee posted on Linked In: “If you are looking for me next week, I’m unavailable because we all have the week off at Spotify to take care of ourselves!”
JUST LAST MONTH, Vivek H. Murthy, the U.S. Surgeon General, provided official advice on how “toxic workplaces,” frequently fueled by a culture of stress and burnout, impact workers’ physical and mental health. In his report, Murthy points out that long-term stress can interfere with sleep, which can cause a variety of physical and mental health issues. Letting employees feel important and addressing these issues head-on is essential for workplaces.
The report reads that “We have the potential to make workplaces engines for mental health and well-being.” “For doing so, organizations will require to reconsider how they safeguard employees from harm, cultivate a sense of connection among employees, show them that they are valued, make room for their lives outside work, and support them in their long-term professional development.”
Employees feel that a focus on mental health and wellness has been too frequently left off the list as a result of the problems presented by the pandemic. In a recent survey, more than half of Gen Z respondents said that having access to mental health benefits was their top priority, being second only to having a 401(k). Research has also shown that although employees want mental health benefits at work, they rarely feel like they actually get them. Even those with unlimited paid time off (PTO) don’t feel motivated or whether they “deserve” to take time off.
The global concerns that impacted employees’ personal and professional lives led Spotify to launch its wellness week in 2021. While some choose to slow down, others choose to travel during the week.
“The primary criteria we had in place was that everyone unplugs. It didn’t matter anything our employees did with their week. We all took a break from the daily barrage of emails, texts, and video conferences,” Berg says in the post. Naturally, we received feedback that at first, it seemed unusual to spend a week not checking email, but that the experience of quiet calmness that eventually took over was unlike any other experience.
Breaks have the power to improve focus, foster long-term productivity, and boost employee retention, according to experts, and hence, Spotify is advising staff to take this week away from work.