Work-life balance is a workplace tug-of-war
Getting time off is increasingly difficult
Cari Garcia couldn’t wait for her two-week summer getaway to Spain.
Envisioning fresh churros and steaming hot chocolate in Madrid, bustling tapas bars in Barcelona and sun-splashed wineries in Andalusia, the stressed-out clinical social worker working in an understaffed hospital psychiatric unit in South Florida submitted her vacation request six months in advance.
But one week before her departure, her supervisor unexpectedly canceled her paid time off.
Garcia says she was not about to get stuck with nonrefundable plane tickets and hotel reservations.
So she quit on the spot.
“This wasn’t a request,” she told her then-supervisor. “It was a ‘Hey, by the way, I’m not going to be here so figure it out.’ ”
Social media is rife with disgruntled employees venting about rebuffed time-off requests and stingy bosses who summon them into work on their wedding day or the day of a family funeral.
One poster said she was denied time off for her honeymoon. “I was not allowed to be gone for two weeks in a row because I was ‘needed,’ ” she said. “Instead they got to learn what it was like without me.”
Another poster who worked as an assistant general manager for a restaurant saved up his paid time off all year to take two weeks after his daughter was born. Two days into his leave, his boss called him back to work. So he went in. And quit.
Gripes like these are fueling a populist internet meme across Instagram, Threads and TikTok: PTO doesn’t mean “paid time off,” workers say, it means “prepare the others.”
“We feel like our right to have a life outside of work is being violated and that’s super triggering for people,” said Tessa West, a New York University psychology professor and the author of “Jerks at Work: Toxic Coworkers and What to Do About Them.”
Gap widens between vacation time requested and granted
If your boss has denied your time off request, you are not alone. It’s harder than ever to get time off work, data shows.
There’s always been a gap between how much vacation employees ask for and how much they get. But lately, that gap has been getting wider.
Employee paid time off requests have increased 11% on average annually since 2019. However, approvals have increased only 9%, according to a new report from BambooHR, a cloud-based HR software company.
In the first two months of this year, paid time off requests jumped 9% yearover-year. Approvals rose by just 3%.
“You have this huge friction going on between organizations that are getting slammed with these requests and individuals who feel like they have the right to make them,” West said.
Workers’ desire for balance causing scheduling headaches
You can blame, in part, a newfound yearning for work-life balance.
As the job market tightened, employers expanded paid time off and other perks to attract and retain workers. At the same time, workers − who used to avoid taking vacations because they feared their careers would suffer − have changed. Weary of heavy workloads and long commutes, they are taking more vacations than they have in over a decade. In 2023, 44% of employees made paid time off requests, up from an average of 37%, BambooHR found.
That workplace tension is being stoked by a younger generation that views paid time off not as a discretionary benefit but as a fundamental entitlement, workplace experts say.
The flurry of time off requests is putting a squeeze on staffing amid persistent worker shortages. About half of paid time off requests are denied each month, according to BambooHR.
People often ask for the same weeks off during the holidays or the summer, which can lead to scheduling headaches and low approval rates. So can “less strategic leadership,” said BambooHR’s head of HR, Anita Grantham.
On the other hand, too few breaks from work can cause burnout, fatigue, poor morale and lower job satisfaction. Studies show that using paid time off can significantly reduce stress and improve employee productivity.
“I think managers feel like their people aren’t able to handle all that’s happening and that they need to have their teams work more to keep up,” Grantham said.
Beware the petty tyrants
Workers point to another phenomenon behind the wave of denied time off requests: petty bosses.
West, the psychology professor, says when she worked in retail, her manager played favorites when doling out time off. “It is the ultimate power move when you feel like you don’t have power over employees in any other way,” she said.
Jena Marie DiPinto says it was a controlling boss who tried to veto her time off request when she was teaching middle school chorus in 2007. She asked for a day or two off to go on her honeymoon. The principal told her she should get married in the summertime instead. DiPinto refused.
“It’s all about clinging to power and policy,” she said.
In the aftermath of the Great Resignation and quiet quitting, workers are starting to take back some control.