Bumble Closes Offices For A Week To Give 'Burnt-Out' Staff A Break

Bumble has temporarily closed its offices this week to allow employees a chance to de-stress. According to a Bloomberg report, around 700 employees of the dating app have been told to take a "much needed break" to recover from Covid burnout.

The decision was praised on Twitter by Bumble's head of editorial content, Clare O'Connor, on Monday. In her now-deleted tweet, Ms O'Connor said that founder Whitney Wolfe Herd had taken the action "having correctly intuited our collective burnout".

The past year has been a busy one for Bumble. The dating app, which allows women to make the first move, made its stock market debut in February this year. The pandemic-induced lockdown only contributed to its popularity as millions of people, quarantined at home, swiped right to beat the lockdown blues. 

According to BBC, the number of paid users across Bumble and Badoo, which Bumble also owns, spiked by 30% in the three months to 31 March. 

Bumble's decision to allow its employees a week off was widely praised on social media.

Good publicity and a morale boost for staff. Win win.

— William (@Wintin67) June 22, 2021

Wow! This is a big deal, especially in America where paid leave is scarce!

Bumble closes to give 'burnt-out' staff a week's break https://t.co/44LWaSiLa6

— The Lanarkshire Laird (@Lshire_Laird) June 22, 2021

Useful curative measure: will be interesting to see what longer term preventative measures are settled upon to avoid rather than treat burn-out. #burnout #wellbeing #workplacewellness Bumble closes to give 'burnt-out' staff a week's break https://t.co/k0Tr9jRuxg

— Nikki Alderson (@NikkiAlderson2) June 22, 2021

Bumble's holiday announcement comes even as several companies across the world are unveiling plans for the future of remote work as the economy reopens.

Google, for example, has changed its work-from-home policy in a bid to get more people back to its US offices. The tech giant has said that employees who wish to work from home for more than 14 days a year will have to apply to do so. 

Apple employees, meanwhile, are pushing back against a new policy requiring them to be in office at least three days a week from September, reports The Verge.

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