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Heartbreak Leave: A New Kind of Employee Perk
October 5, 2008
I was surprised when I heard someone scoff at the idea of providing employees with “
heartbreak leave,” which is a concept being introduced by a Japanese company called
Hime & Co. Its founder, Miki Hiradate, decided to give employees paid time off to mourn and/or heal from a break up. As far as I’m concerned it’s a no-brainer. First of all, break ups make people sick anyway. So let’s start there. Over the years, I have had countless employees “call out” to deal with the emotion, tears, upset and depression resulting from the loss of a relationship. It makes perfect sense to give people a little space to recover and bounce back from a broken heart, because in the end, they are going to take it anyway.
Meanwhile, why not take advantage of an opportunity to work with employees rather than against them and create a better employer/employee relationship by extending this kind of compassion and support? It certainly is humane and I would say bound to generate a healthier, more productive and committed workforce. Frankly, I don’t think that it’s any different from bereavement leave on one end of the time-off philosophy scale and honeymoon leave on the other.
What I don’t get is how Hiradate came up with the allocation of time by age. A young woman in her early 20’s can take one day, in her late 20’s she gets two days and a thirty-something is entitled to three days. Now, what the policy doesn’t seem to cover is what happens after 40. But even so, like many other things, the devil is in the details and I’m afraid that this is where it all falls apart.
Imposing the degree to which a human being suffers by age, is ludicrous. It’s no one’s call to decide that a younger person’s pain requires less than an older person's (and we’re only talking about a few years difference here). It totally depends on the person and the relationship. Divorce, puppy love, first love or the love of a lifetime – loss is loss and it hurts like hell no matter what. Ms. Hiradate would be better off giving everyone two days, lower the risk of being misunderstood, bias and/or out of touch and maximize the psychological benefits of the perk.
My other concern is the uniquely feminine nature of “shitsuren kyuka,” otherwise known as
time off to fix a broken heart. Granted, Hime & Co. is exclusively made up of women, but I’d hate to see this catch on as a “girl thing.” Guys deserve to lick their wounds too. I guess I needn’t worry too much should it makes it’s way to the United States because before we’d even have the chance to shed a tear, we’d be in the courts fighting both age and gender discrimination suits.
Posted by Donna Flagg on October 5, 2008 | Comments (3)
