Indian Startup To Fine Employees For Disturbing Colleague On Leave

This policy will allow the person on leave to have no contact with emails, chats and other groups.

Imagine that it's your week off and you didn't get a single call or text from the office. Finding it hard to process? Well, you are not alone. While it sounds next to impossible, a company has taken baby steps to make sure that its employees aren't disturbed on their leave days. And, there is a fine in case the employee gets a call. Wait, what? Oh yes, you read that right. Dream11, a fantasy sports platform, has introduced the "Dream11 Unplug" policy for all its employees to help them relax, rewind and rejuvenate on their leave days. This policy will allow the person to have no contact with emails, chats and other groups.

Speaking to CNBC, Harsh Jain and Bhavit Seth, co-founders of the company, said, “Once a year, for one week, you're kicked out of the [company] system … you don't have Slack, emails and calls.” Talking about the hefty fine, Mr Jain said, “Anyone who reaches out to another employee during “unplug” time has to pay a fine of about $1,200 [1 lakh approx]”. The two added that this policy has been a success so far. 

In a statement, which was released in February last year on Linkedin, the company said,  “At Dream11, we actually log off the 'Dreamster' who is unplugged, off from every possible Stadium communication platform, be it slack, emails and even WhatsApp groups. We do this to ensure absolutely no one from the Dreamster's work ecosystem can contact them while they are on their well-deserved break".

Wondering how a person working at Dream11 can opt for it. “To avail Unplugged, Dreamsters have to have spent at least one year in the organisation or worked on one IPL,” the statement added.