CALGARY – Earlier this summer, dating app Bumble gave its employees a week off to manage pandemic burnout. Not long after, Nike closed its head offices for a week for employees to have a mental health break.
Now it seems some Canadian companies are following suit. Gentle Lion Communications, tech company The 51, Autism Calgary, and a number of others closed their offices this summer for a week to give employees some extra time off.
Calgary-based Kidoodle.TV gave it’s employees a week off in September right around back to school time.
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Kidoodle.TV’s President and Co-founder Neil Gruninger says they wanted to ensure everyone was able to truly get a break, especially given the pandemic situation.
“The program was specifically built out to ensure that all of our employees had time with their families to reflect on what was most important to them and coming
back recharged really at the end of the day,” he said.
“It’s September, back-to-school situation, you know everything is a lot busier during that time and we just wanted to ensure that our employees had a break to reflect on those things.
Kidoodle.TV People and Culture Advisor Leina Nhan says during her week off it was nice to be able to disconnect.
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“The message was truly rest, go re-charge, go refuel yourself with whatever floats your boat but truly take this time to reflect. Reflect on all the awesomeness you’ve done over the year, over the past few years, or however long you’ve been with Kidoodle. Just take that time to just enjoy.”
Nhan says having two sons, it was nice to have time off to take her kids to school during their first week.
“I just don’t even remember a time that I was able to do that because it was just go, go, go. And then just getting those extra workout days in, that’s good for my mental health, I just needed to get some workouts, get some nice light reading in. It was fantastic so I just couldn’t really think of a better time for it to happen,” she said.
