Curious what people think of this announcement and if anyone is looking to implement something similar? https://cointelegraph-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/cointelegraph.com/news/coinbase-announces-nearly-the-entire-company-will-shut-down-for-four-weeklong-breaks-in-2022-to-allow-workers-to-recharge/amp

In 2020, we did impose a summer and christmas break due to the fact no one was taking leave during COVID-19, we didn’t follow that up in 2021 but kept a closer eye on who was taking leave so it levelled itself out. I think this is a challenge when our lives are not set to the same four weeklong breaks and this takes away some of the personal flexibility. It doesn’t say if this is in addition to normal time off or taken from an annual allocation. For a small company it is good if everyone is off at the same time and can communicate this with clients etc as it does create silence for a week (or however long) as individual leave means that there is the drumbeat of colleagues activity that some find hard not to ignore.

I had a client do something similar but it was 2 weeks, and short enough that the entire company did go on one “wellness/reset” break. Their attrition rate slowed to nearly zero and eNPS scores skyrocketed. People really needed the mental break. I also worked for a company that did this annually over the holidays, again for 2-2.5 entire weeks-- no work. period. This is an organization that also experienced very little turnover. I will say that 4 weeks seems like something is not being said about any work continuing behind the scenes. “nearly the entire company” can mean many things, and I bet those in excluded are a group of people that may need it the most. Pure speculation of course!

We do one friday every month and then essentially closed christmas-new years....this does seem excessive and just a retaining ploy for now, plus wouldn't necessarily work for a company that has a large customer support function (my last company had a call center and this would have never been do-able in any way possible). I also just saw that Signifyd is moving to a 4 day work week, but that also has pain points IMO. Interesting to see more companies trying to give more time but curious how it will really play out.

As an alternative take on the same lines, the team here have just transitioned to a 4 day work week. We found that weekends are now so crammed with commitments that no one really had anytime to recover and would arrive on Monday morning just as tired as they left on Friday. It's early days, but happy to report back on how we get on.