Bumble gives staff paid week off to tackle 'collective burnout'

22 June 2021, 11:00 | Updated: 22 June 2021, 11:30

Dating app Bumble has given its staff a paid week off to combat “collective burnout” which has come about during the pandemic.

The company says the break will allow its 700 employees worldwide “to shut off and focus on themselves”.

In a now-deleted tweet, Bumble’s head of editorial content praised the app’s founder and CEO, Whitney Wolfe Herd, for the decision.

Clare O’Connor tweeted on Monday: “.@WhitWolfeHerd gave all 700ish of us a paid week off, having correctly intuited our collective burnout.

“In the U.S. especially, where vacation days are notoriously scarce, it feels like a big deal.”

Employees receive an average on 10 days paid annual leave in the US, although the exact number varies depending on the employer.

Bumble initially announced its intention to give staff a week off in a tweet back in April.

The tweet read: “We recently announced that all Bumble employees will have a paid, fully offline one-week vacation in June.”

The company said in a statement on Tuesday: “Like everyone, our global team has had a very challenging time during the pandemic.

“As vaccination rates have increased and restriction have begun to ease, we wanted to give our teams around the world an opportunity to shut off and focus on themselves for a week.”

Employees will be back at work from June 28.

The pandemic has been a busy period for dating apps, with the number of paid users signing up to Bumble seeing a spike earlier this year as lockdown boredom set in.

Bumble also made its stock market debut in February.

The company recently announced it was one of a number of brands adding new features to its app as part of a new campaign to boost the uptake of Covid-19 jabs.