Pinterest is giving staff a day off to avoid burnout

• Pinterest gave all its staff a day off on Friday.
  
• It joins firms like Nike, Bumble, and LinkedIn in giving employees bonus time off to combat burnout.
• Yahoo also gave staffers a day off to celebrate the firm's acquisition by private equity firm Apollo.

Pinterest is the latest company to give staff paid time off to unwind and alleviate symptoms of burnout.

The image-sharing firm said in a post on its own Pinterest page that all of its global offices will be closed Friday.

"Pintentions is Pinterest's self-care program, designed to help you hit the reset button and avoid burnout," Pinterest's post said. "The idea behind it is simple: take the time to do whatever it is that will make you feel recharged, whether that's resting, exercising, meditating, spending time with friends and family, or anything in between."

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The company also shared a link to a Spotify playlist designed to help employees unwind, created by DJs and Pinterest employees Devin Askounis and B Dukes - and offered tips for how workers could "hit the reset button and avoid burnout".

Pinterest is headquartered in San Francisco, and has 2,200 staff worldwide. It has offices in several US cities as well as London, Tokyo, Paris, and Sau Paulo among others.

Insider approached Pinterest for further comment.

Separately, Yahoo also gave its staff a day off, a spokesperson confirmed to Insider, though this was less to combat burnout and more to celebrate the firm's acquisition by private equity firm Apollo Global Management.

Apollo struck a $5 billion deal with Verizon in May to acquire its media brands, Yahoo and AOL, with the transaction officially closing on Wednesday. Yahoo has more than 10,000 workers worldwide.

Other high-profile firms have offered day- or weeklong shutdowns for workers to avoid burnout.

Nike closed its corporate offices for a week between August 23 and August 30 to help employees' "rest and recovery."

LinkedIn gave its 15,000 plus staff paid time off in April, while dating app Bumble gave 750 staff a fully paid week off in June.

After 1.5 years of lockdowns, working from home, and pandemic anxiety, many workers are reporting feeling stressed, overworked, and burned out. The paid time off may also be a retention mechanism, with millions of workers considering a career change as their priorities shift towards more leisure time, and time with family.

According to a global survey of 5,043 full time workers by McKinsey, 49% said that they were somewhat burned out, with the consultancy concluding that this is likely an underrepresentation of the true scale.