NIKE will once again close all of its offices worldwide for a week in August to give its employees additional time off to recover and rest, according to a Friday LinkedIn post from Connor Snashall, a lead technical recruiter for Nike. [Nike to Close Offices Again For a Week in August, Offer Summer Fridays, As It Brings Employees Back Into the Office – FN]
“In August, Nike is giving every employee a #wellbeing week off, without having to use any #PTO,” Snashall wrote. “Many companies talk about work life balance, why not work somewhere they #justdoit?”
In addition to the week off in August, Snashall also noted that Nike had rolled out “Summer Fridays” through Labor Day, where every Friday ends at noon to give employees a longer weekend.
Nike’s EVP and chief human resources officer Monique Matheson also announced the initiatives in a LinkedIn post around the same time. Nike referred FN to this post in response to a request for comment.
The Swoosh made the decision to close its offices for a week for the first time last August, giving global employees the option to take time off in advance of a planned to return to the office in the fall. In May 2021, Nike said it would bring employees back to its headquarters in Beaverton, Ore., in September with a “3-2 flexible work model,” which allows employees to work remotely up to two days a week.
In February, Nike confirmed that its reopen date had been rolled back to May 3. As such, Nike employees began their return-to-office process earlier this week, with some employees taking to social media to voice their anxieties and excitement about being back on campus.
This week-off initiative from Nike comes amid a period of general worker unrest and anxiety, as companies ask — or, in some cases, require — their workforce to come back into the office.
Employers are grappling with balancing this shift with overall employee well-being. In a fall 2021 survey conducted by Prodoscore (an intelligence software that monitors employee visibility and productivity), 82.3% of the 1,000 U.S. adults surveyed reported being happier working remotely full-time than having to work in an office. And more than a third of respondents (36.7%) said their mental health has been positively impacted since they started working from home.
Nike has been an outward proponent for destigmatizing mental health issues in recent years. Last May, the brand teamed up with Crisis Text Line with the goal to advance the conversation around the importance of mental health and expand the direct line of support to those in need.
