Our Insights

How Company-Wide Shutdown Weeks Can Reduce Burnout and Support Workplace Well-Being

At Canadian Equality Consulting, equity isn’t just a policy. It’s a practice. 

For the past three years, we’ve embraced a bold and necessary initiative: Equality Week. Every July, our company closes for a full, paid week. No emails. No meetings. No “just a few quick things.” The entire organization, every team, every person takes a week long pause. 

When people first hear about Equality Week, they often assume it’s simply an employee perk or wellness benefit. For us, it’s a deliberate workplace strategy designed to support employee well-being and challenge the culture of constant availability. 

As organizations grapple with burnout, retention, and workplace culture challenges, many leaders are rethinking how recovery fits into the employee experience. While vacation policies are important, many employees still struggle to fully disconnect. Emails continue to arrive, meetings continue to happen, and work moves forward without them. 

Equality Week was designed to address that challenge by allowing employees to step away together, knowing they won’t return to overflowing inboxes, missed meetings, or the pressure of catching up on work that continued in their absence. 

That’s why we continue to invest in Equality Week and why we believe this approach deserves a place in the broader conversation about burnout, workplace well-being, equity, and inclusion. 

The Problem with Always–On Culture

Research continues to show that burnout remains one of the most significant challenges facing organizations today. Studies from organizations such as Gallup and Deloitte consistently find that employee well-being, workload management, flexibility, and workplace culture are closely connected to engagement, retention, and performance. 

Yet many workplaces continue to reward constant availability. Employees are expected to respond quickly, remain connected, and manage increasing workloads while navigating ongoing organizational change. 

Over time, this “always-on” culture can contribute to chronic stress, disengagement, reduced creativity, and increased turnover. 

The challenge is not simply that employees are working hard. Many employees struggle to fully recover from work. 

Even when organizations provide vacation time, many employees continue checking emails, monitoring messages, or worrying about what will be waiting for them when they return. Research on recovery consistently finds that the restorative benefits of time away from work are strongest when people are able to detach from work. When that detachment doesn’t happen, the benefits of vacation are significantly reduced. 

As organizations look for ways to address burnout, many are beginning to ask a different question: What if recovery wasn’t left entirely up to individual employees? 

What Is a Company–Wide Shutdown Week? 

At CEC, Equality Week is a full-office closure during the first full week of July. 

For one week, the entire organization steps away from work. 

Everyone takes the same time off. The focus shifts from productivity to well-being. 

Unlike traditional vacation policies, company-wide shutdowns remove the pressure employees often feel when taking time away while colleagues continue working. There is no concern about missed meetings, overflowing inboxes, or falling behind on projects because everyone is stepping away together. 

Equality Week is not simply an employee benefit. It reflects our values and our belief that sustainable performance requires intentional opportunities to support employee well-being. Equality Week is one of the ways we build recovery into our workplace culture. In addition to our annual summer shutdown, we also close at year-end, creating two predictable opportunities each year for our team to fully disconnect, recharge, and return ready to do their best work.

How Company–Wide Shutdowns Help Prevent Employee Burnout

Many organizations invest in wellness programs, mental health support, and employee assistance resources. While these initiatives can play an important role, they do not always address the workplace conditions that contribute to burnout, including workload expectations, constant connectivity, and limited opportunities for recovery. 

Planned closures create a different experience. Because work pauses across the organization, employees experience less pressure to stay connected or worry about falling behind. This distinction matters because burnout is not simply an individual issue. It is also influenced by workplace systems, workload expectations, staffing levels, and organizational culture. 

Organizations play an important role in creating conditions that allow employees to recharge and maintain their well-being. 

A collective pause can reduce pressure to remain constantly available, creating opportunities for genuine mental and emotional rest, supporting employees with caregiving responsibilities, encouraging leaders to model healthy boundaries, and reinforcing a culture where well-being is valued alongside performance. 

At a time when many organizations are grappling with burnout, employee well-being, and retention challenges, company closures offer a practical way to build recovery into workplace culture rather than leaving it solely to individual employees to navigate on their own. 

Companies Using Company–Wide Shutdowns to Prevent Burnout

Organizations across industries are increasingly experimenting with collective time off as a strategy to support employee well-being and reduce burnout. 

Adobe has implemented company-wide summer and winter shutdown periods, Hootsuite introduced Wellness Weeks to support employee well-being, and PwC offers annual summer and winter closures that allow employees to unplug without worrying that work is continuing without them. 

While these organizations vary in size and industry, they share a common belief: workplace systems and policies play an important role in supporting employee well-being. 

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