Delhi CEO's response over 'late-night party leave' request by employee goes viral

A conversation between a CEO from Delhi and his employee has gone viral on social media and sparked a discussion on leave policies as well as workplace culture. Ankit Aggarwal, the founder and CEO of Unstop, shared the screenshot of his chat with his employee on LinkedIn.

"This landed in my WhatsApp today morning. Employee asking for a leave because the party and it’s after party is still on. This openness is critical within a team so that you can trust your team and they are ensured that you will back them," he wrote as he shared the screenshot.

The screenshot showed the employee asking for a "late-night party leave", to which Aggarwal instantly agreed.

"When colleagues feel comfortable being open and honest with each other, it builds a foundation of trust that can lead to better communication, collaboration, and overall success, his post read further.

Aggarwal's response sparked a conversation on social media, with many people lauding him.

"This is what I needed to read today. In my past work experience, there were instances where my team and I were honest and gave our manager the true reasons why we needed leave - it could be a weekend getaway, to attend weddings, or just "we're mentally exhausted, we need a day off to do nothing". We weren't permitted to take a day off until someone from our family was either hospitalized or dead! I must say, all of us lost a lot of our relatives for us to get leaves," a LinkedIn user wrote.

"This is called real team building, team leader, leadership," another said.

"How refreshing it is to witness such camaraderie between a founder and their work partners. Most organisations lack even basic levels of transparency, honesty, and candidness. They believe the so-called 'employees' will take them for a ride and stop respecting them. What they really fail to understand is the concept of mutual support and recognition. Perhaps why they have a high attrition rate and zero happiness quotient amongst the people working with/for them," a third added.

However, some of them had a different opinion.

"While I understand employees may occasionally need urgent last minute vacation I don’t think this would be a valid reason. The problem here is the employee was not asking, but merely sent a instruction to their employer. This is not a respectful way of working as the employer was not left with a choice as to approve or not," a user said.

"Who’s the manager here? While I can appreciate the honesty, the absolute lack of consideration for the people they work with is astounding. The members of the teams may have planned their efforts around the morning meetings. Some may have scheduled (in advance) to be off that afternoon. Not to mention the company’s obligations and deadlines. Maybe accepting this kind of attitude is what got over two thirds of Twitter’s employees fired," another stated.

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