Nice time off if you can get it

There’s strong evidence more leave increases productivity ... Energised staff can get through more. Alternatively, fatigued staff slog away more sluggishly and to less effect.

Unlimited. The word promises much. A lot more than a word like nebulous.

Most of us shouldn’t get our hopes up at the example set by NZ video game developer Rocketwerkz offering unlimited annual leave for at least some, typically more senior, employees, in no small part as a recruitment tool.

You could call this a shining example – one that speaks of trust, respect, and acknowledgement that rested, motivated staff work better. Better, for most of us, to see it as a shimmering mirage not likely any time soon to materialise with substantial benefit to a workplace near us.

The trouble isn’t that the system would be extravagantly abused. It’s that so often the undetermined leave entitlement would languish, constrained by the imperatives of getting projects done, satisfying key performance indicators, syncing all that promised flexibility into the demands of teamwork and timelines, and not wanting to be the staffer most indulged when times are good, so most dispensable when they toughen up.

That may seem a bleak view but look around. Already many employees, and not only in hi-tech jobs, are working on the agreed basis that, sure, once they get the task completed then, by all means, they’re outta here and with the boss’ blessing.

Sweet. Except in reality they are still being flogged or flogging themselves under long hours and heavy workloads.

How many businesses find themselves having to hector sometimes conspicuously weary staff into taking their allotted entitlements?

Not out of the martyr syndrome, either. For many people, the periods directly before and after holidays can be massively stressful because the work will form a major logjam in their absence. So they face either an exhausting task of trying to get ahead beforehand, or they’re nagged throughout their break by the sense of dread about what awaits them on their return.

None of which means there’s nothing to be done and everyone back to the grindstone.

The broader and more compelling need is for more formal leave in our workplaces.

There’s strong evidence more leave increases productivity.

And poor productivity is a problem that has bedevilled New Zealand.

Energised staff can get through more. Alternatively, fatigued staff slog away more sluggishly and to less effect.

In some, not all, cases the compression of a 40-hour week into four 10-hour days is a potential improvement.

Did we say 40-hour week? Many among us work longer, on that same task-must-be-done basis, oftentimes without drawing the commensurate overtime payments.

Many of those aren’t doing it in a single job either, but two or more part-time positions.

Ultimately, lots of us have scant prospect of landing sweetly flexible jobs given our society’s service expectations are always increasing, meaning we need more people working in bars, restaurants, supermarkets and so on.

So, then, the most beneficial form of workplace flexibility is surely achieved not by increasingly floppy entitlements but by staff resourcing levels sufficient to provide flexibility. Mountains of goodwill still won’t suffice if there aren’t enough people in a position to back one another up.