“Meesho just gave 1,200 employees an 11-day break with 0 work allowed.
No laptops. No emails. No Slack. Complete shutdown.
Meesho has been doing this every festive season since 2022, and they’re not some quiet startup with 20 people.
They’re an e-commerce platform with 1,200+ employees handling millions of orders during their biggest sales period.
Here’s what makes this actually impressive:
Most Indian companies run their hardest during the festive season.
Sales targets pile up, customer calls don’t stop, weekend shifts become normal. Meesho does all that too during their Mega Blockbuster Sale.
But the moment it ends, they shut down the entire company for 11 days. Not “”encouraged to take leave”” but actually forced offline.
📍 We always hear about work-life balance in Europe.
📍 France banned work emails after 6 pm.
📍 Germany has strict working hour laws.
We read those stories and think “”that’s never happening in India.””
Meesho is proving that wrong. If a company running Diwali sales can give 11 days off during peak season, what’s really stopping others?
The part that convinced me this actually works is that they’ve done it three years running now. Which means:
→ Employees came back recharged, not distracted
→ The business grew instead of collapsing
→ Retention rates stayed high
This isn’t about being nice. It’s about understanding that burnt-out employees can’t build great companies. When 56% of Indian workers report burnout, forcing people to rest isn’t radical anymore.
It’s just smart business.”