Alissa Hawkins headshot Written by: Alissa Hawkins

What We Learned From Taking a Day Off in 2021

Toward the end of 2021, we let our team know we were taking a day off. It wasn’t a holiday or special day – we just knew our team needed a break. So we took one.

Our team works really hard, and especially in the hiring landscape we’ve been in, they were putting in extra work and time. As a company, we value our employees and knew it was time to give them a break. Sure, we have holidays and set days on the calendar that our business is closed, but this was different. Making this a surprise day off made it even more special.

View of Handler's empty office space when taking a day off

Here’s what we learned after doing this day off:

  1. The health (both mental and physical) of your employees matters more than anything else.
  2. When we recharge, we come back better than before.
  3. Invest in your employees and they’ll stick around.
  4. “Culture” can mean caring about employees enough to give them a random day off.
  5. When we’re burnt out, we don’t perform at our highest level.
  6. We’re stronger, together.

We learned so much from this surprise day off last year – and saw such a difference in our team the following Monday.

I encourage you to try something similar. We certainly have plans to do this again.