Not Sick Leave - Heartache Leave!

by Beth McHugh | More from this Blogger

01 Mar 2009 04:54 PM

We are all familiar with sick leave, either paid or unpaid, as part of our employment package. But a Tokyo-based firm, Hime and Company, have introduced the concept of "heartache leave" to their employees.

The powers that be at Hime and Company have recognized that the emotional impact of a relationship breakup has a profound effect on their employee's ability to satisfactorily fulfill their jobs. And hence they allow their employees time to get over the most severe early stages of a long term relationship breakup,

This makes sense as women in such a situation are likely to come to work and spend much of their day "talking it out" with the girls in the office. This naturally induces not only a loss of productivity for the heartache-filled but also reduced productivity for the listeners. It's the emotional equivalent of bringing a bad cold virus into the workplace.

Men, of course, deal with emotion issues differently and are less likely to spend time "talking it out" with the boys. However, they are more prone to workplace injuries or serious mistakes in office-type situations.

Hence this Tokyo company as made the decision to give their employees "heartache leave" so as to avoid costly fallouts to their own operations. Their opinion is that not everyone needs maternity leave but most people need heartache leave. The leave increases with age of the employee, so that employees aged 30 years and over are entitled to three days per year to "get it out of their system'.

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Learn more about Beth McHugh

Beth McHugh began her career as a geologist and worked both in industry and as a university researcher.

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Michele Cheplic (37339) 02 Mar 2009 05:40 PM

Leave it to the Japanese to come up with yet another brilliant idea.

Beth McHugh (13216) 05 Mar 2009 04:47 PM

Ha! This may be one of their better ones!