Man who got ‘strange look’ for taking off on his birthday introduces special leave policy as founder. Here’s what he did
In a LinkedIn post, the founder explained more about the new leave policy he introduced for birthdays. He has received praise for introducing the policy.
Social media has become a platform for employees to voice their frustrations and share their experiences with toxic work cultures. From direct complaints to subtle hints, individuals use online platforms to expose harmful workplace environments. Amid those, a positive post by a founder about helping his employees take a step towards a better work-life balance has gone viral. He shared about a new birthday-special leave policy introduced at his company.
“We've recently started a 'Birthday Plus One' leave day-off policy. Every team member gets a holiday day-off on two additional days in a year. 1. Their own birthday 2. Any one of their near and dear ones' birthdays. Both days are treated as Holidays. Their leave balance isn't impacted,” founder and partner at Alphanumero, Abhijit Chakraborty, wrote.
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He added that once he received a “strange look” from his senior after taking a day off on his birthday. “A super skilled and super efficient team deserves all this and more,” he added.
Take a look at the entire share here:
How did social media react to this policy by the founder?
A content strategist wrote, “EY definitely not listening,” referring to a tragic death of an employee. The 26-year-old CA’s mother claimed she died due to excessive work pressure. Reportedly, EY India chairman Rajiv Memani has denied the claims. During an interview with a media outlet, he said, “We don’t believe that work pressure could have claimed her life.”
Chakraborty replied to the comments, sharing, “The larger the organisation the farther they get from the individual sphere. People are seen as tools and machines. Humanity keeps diminishing in inverse proportion to the size of the organisation (or in case of small companies, inversely proportional to the founder's greed and ego). Of course, this is an overgeneralization and oversimplification of a very layered and complex subject. I worked at Pernod Ricard which is a large organisation but the company and people were superb, very kind and very helpful.”
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An educator was reminded of a controversial remark by Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy. “But, but we are supposed to be working 70 hrs/week!!” the LinkedIn user wrote.
A consultant at one of the Big 4 firms commented, “Good if you are taking care of your employees.” A talent acquisition expert joined, “Happy to see that there are organisations who are concerned about their employee's well being and are going an extra mile to strike a balance b/w work and life.”
What are your thoughts on this founder’s post about their new birthday leave policy?