Are HR Brew readers giving employees days off to address mental health?

Burnout became a mainstay in the workplace lexicon during the pandemic, and has been entrenched ever since. Companies have offered various remedies to combat the malady—defined by the World Health Organization as a “syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed”—including granting workers organization-wide mental health days during times of high stress.

We asked HR Brew readers if they’ve attempted to address burnout by giving all employees the day off. Among respondents, 18% said they were thinking about it, 39% said they had already done it, and 43% said they never would.

That 43% might want to reconsider. Gen Z suffers from more mental health issues than other generations and this can make them more disengaged at work. According to a 2022 report from Deloitte on mental health in the workplace, stress and anxiety levels are higher among Gen Z than millennials with 46% claiming to be “stressed or anxious all or most of the time.”

Maybe a mental health day is not the answer. Last year, as Google searches for “burnout” reached a (then) all-time high, Charlie Judy, chief people and culture officer at the healthcare data company Intelligent Medical Objects, told HR Brew that burnout affects everyone differently, and institutional measures to address it may miss the mark. One way to combat the issue, he said, is for managers to “get better at reaching out and being intentional about having real, meaningful conversations with people.”