Why (almost) all Yum! Brands employees are off work

Image provided by Yum! Brands.

The parking lots of Yum! Brands' restaurant support centers will be nearly empty on August 19. The building lights will be mostly turned off, and it'll be eerily quiet. Gone will be the sounds of shoes shuffling down hallways, colleagues chatting or the melodic "doon-doon-da-da-dum-doon-doon" of a Microsoft Teams call.

That's because August 19 is a Live Well Day. School and daycare may be open, and employees' partners may be at their jobs. But Yum! above-restaurant staffers have the day off, and they receive five of these days per calendar year.

What started during the COVID-19 pandemic as a way to prioritize employee mental health has become the company's most popular benefit, said People & Culture Manager Sheila True, who's responsible for the program.

"It's hard to take vacation," she explained. "You're gearing up before vacation to prepare, and then you come back and you have to catch back up. But on a Live Well Day, everybody takes off. There's no email to catch up on. It's like we all take a breath together."

And research suggests that time away really does matter. According to a recent issue of Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, research across 16 studies found that employees who psychologically detach from work during their time-off experience better well-being and their managers observe them having improved performance post-PTO. The researchers also suggested that formal company policies encouraging disconnection can help establish healthier norms around actually stepping away from work.

When asked, employees gave a variety of examples of how they took that collective breath. Yum! Culture, Opportunity & Belonging Senior Analyst Ronita McDonald swaps her phone for a book to read at a local coffee shop. Yum! Treasury Director Brandon Walker sleeps in. Habit Burger & Grill Legal Counsel Cayla Whitley wakes up without a plan and sees where the day takes her. Yum! Control Manager Aaron Brewer takes his wife on a kid-free lunch date. Yum! Director of Global Public Relations Lori Eberenz spends the day with her best friend of over 30 years. Once they even got matching tattoos!

The common thread: Many employees keep Live Well Days a secret from family and friends so the time can stay focused on themselves.

For True, protecting that time is the point. "I will be at the center of every Live Well Day," she said. "As parents, when do we pause and take a moment for ourselves? I don't want to do errands. I don't want to do laundry. It's not a catch-up for me. It's where I get to be the focus."

Once, True remembers, she went to a local park during the winter and sat by the creek with the sun warming her face and the snow blanketing her feet. "It was beautiful," she said. Another Live Well Day, she walked into a spa locker room and found several coworkers wearing robes and also indulging in some self-care.

But before employees can bask in the winter sun or become puddles during massages, True's team carefully selects the five days to ensure they feel like a pause for as many employees as possible. The dates change from year to year, and their announcement is a highly anticipated communication.

There are guardrails, according to True. While the goal is for everyone to get the day off, that's not always possible, given the nature of the business, so some teams employ contractors to ensure that imminent work gets done or provide alternative time-off to colleagues who have to work. Also, regional holidays are avoided so Live Well Days remain true days off, which True says can be difficult to plan as Yum! and its brands operate in more than 150 countries and territories, each with its own locally relevant holiday schedule. Still, the team tries its best to find five days that work for Yum!'s 4,500 employees and remain flexible with regional requests.

Perhaps what is most encouraging is how pervasive Live Well Days are throughout the company. Leaders motivate their teams to fully disengage, and if emails are sent, they're not expected to be answered until the following day.

Once, when one of True's colleagues said she would come in for a vendor meeting on a Live Well Day, True's response was immediate: "Absolutely not! This is a gift the company gives, and we will have that meeting the following day or the next week."

That expectation extends beyond internal teams. On Live Well Days, vendors and contractors are often met with a wave of out-of-office messages, which True sees as small culture wins for the company. In her own message, she asks, "How are you living well?"

"The only people emailing me on a Live Well Day are our outside partners, and they'll actually respond!" True said. "Their answers always make me smile. One said she lives well by enjoying great events with amazing women, referring to a charity benefit we were scheduled to attend."

As for True, on August 19, she'll be somewhere in nature, letting the day lead her where it wants her to go, and, like the rest of Yum! employees, living well.