This Ex-Banker Gives New Hires Two Weeks Off Before They Even Start Their Jobs

Like a lot of Gen-Yers, Alana Steinberg wanted her next job to be less stressful than her last. The Harvard grad was done with the 80-hour workweeks in consulting. So when, near the end of her interview process with SevenRooms, a hospitality tech startup in New York City, the company offered her two weeks paid leave before she even started, she perked right up. "It made it even easier to accept the job," says Steinberg, who joined as a product marketing manager shortly after the program, Fresh Start, launched in January. "Something that's a big concern for me is having a life and being a person."

Concerns like Steinberg's have resonated with SevenRooms co-founder and chief executive Joel Montaniel, 37, a former investment banker who used to clock 100-hour workweeks. As the company went on a hiring spree in 2021 during its shift from in-office to fully remote work, he saw in Fresh Start a tool to win in the recruiting trenches. By his calculations, long recruiting cycles and employee burnout would cost him more. And business has been booming: Since the onset of the pandemic, Montaniel says, the number of guests booked through the platform has grown 515 percent.

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