HubSpot Commits to Battling Burnout Long-Term, Introducing an Annual Week of Rest and Prevention Initiatives

There’s no denying that burnout is on the rise globally. A study by Deloitte found that 77% of respondents have experienced burnout at their current job, and nearly 70% feel that their employers aren’t doing enough about it. As a fast-paced, growing company with over 121,000 customers in more than 120 countries, HubSpot is no stranger to the symptoms of burnout. We recognize that we need to create a more sustainable way of working -- one that has more balance and less burnout. 

That’s why we’re building upon our HubSpot Unplugged initiative and committing to a long-term plan to help employees prevent and battle burnout. We’re excited to introduce this new framework called the 5 Rs: Rest, Recharge, Reboard, Resilience, and Root Cause.

1. Rest: Introducing an Annual Global Week of Rest
   Between a 5-year sabbatical, unlimited vacation, and flexible working schedules, we’ve always encouraged employees to take time off. Yet, we recognize that it’s easier to truly rest and unplug when your colleagues are doing it alongside you. In a recent survey, one HubSpot employee put it best: “Unlimited vacation is great, but not spending your whole day back from vacation going through Slack messages and emails is even better.” That’s why we’re making our Global Week of Rest an annual perk, held during the week of July 4 each year. 
2. Recharge: Having ‘No Internal Meeting Fridays’
   It’s hard to have uninterrupted time to do work when you’re spending hours each day in meetings. Continuing to implement 'No Internal Meeting Fridays’ is just one way we can ensure people have more time and space on their calendars - whether that’s for deep work, prep, or time to recharge.
3. Reboard: Supporting Managers With Focused Resources
   According to Gallup, employees who strongly agree with feeling supported by their manager are about 70% less likely to experience burnout regularly. We’ll arm our managers with the resources they need to create balance for themselves and their teams, focused on hybrid work inclusion, collaboration, and decision-making.
4. Resilience: Offering a Workshop Around Sustainable Performance
   Burnout doesn’t come with an end date. People want actionable frameworks for long-term change. Rethinking Resilience is a vendor-led, hybrid workshop available to all HubSpotters globally. The self-paced and research-based sessions are designed to reduce stress and increase control in energy, performance, and overall well-being.
5. Root Cause: Solving for the Long Term
   We need to address burnout at its root, not just address the symptoms. That’s why we’ll prioritize workforce planning, define expectations around communication and collaboration, and introduce frameworks to remove friction for employees in making decisions at scale.

HubSpot’s new burnout prevention initiatives follow HubSpot Unplugged. Launched this summer, it included three key components to helping with burnout: a Global Week of Rest in early July, No Internal Meeting Fridays and more Mental Health Programming. Through our quarterly employee survey, we heard from our employees loud and clear that HubSpot Unplugged was a great start, but that we needed to get to the root cause of burnout. That’s why we’ve spent some time doing a deep dive across the company to better understand the drivers of burnout and how we can help fix it. 

“We want HubSpot to be a company where you can do your best work. To make that a reality, we need to remember that we’re running a marathon, not a sprint”, said Yamini Rangan, HubSpot’s CEO. “It’s critical we help employees build more sustainable ways of working by doubling down on our culture of flexibility, but also by addressing the root causes of burnout. That’s why I’m excited about these new initiatives that are designed to infuse more balance into how we work at HubSpot long-term.”

Solving burnout doesn’t happen overnight. In true HubSpot fashion, we’ll look to share our challenges, successes and lessons learned along the way. To learn more about HubSpot’s culture, visit www.culturecode.com.  

How did HubSpotters react to the news of an annual week of rest? Check it out below!