Why leaders shouldn’t call a timeout on their workers’ time off
As your company heads into the final quarter of 2018, spend a moment with your team and talk about all the cool things you and your associates did on vacation this year. If you and/or your team have little or nothing to talk about, you’re not alone. According to a recent survey from Glassdoor, American workers are forfeiting half of their vacation time.
And those who do use their paid time off (PTO)? A survey by Alamo Rent-A-Car said 47 percent of workers felt shame at work for taking vacation days.
Work is stressful. Not using time off compounds that stress. Stress can reduce productivity and creativity, and make people sick. Wouldn’t you rather have employees take planned time off than unexpectedly call in sick? (Not that you can totally prevent that; even the least stressed people get sick sometimes.)
Here are some ways for you as a leader to encourage employees to take the time off they’ve earned:
1. Help make it happen. Encouraging people to take time off is easy. Making it possible is more of a challenge. Plan well in advance how the gap will be covered.
2. Suggest the best times for employees to take vacations. Obviously taking vacation the week before Christmas isn’t ideal for someone working as a mall Santa. That’s an extreme example. However, work with employees to schedule time off that accommodates their plans and covers the work. Don’t just say no to a request at an inopportune time and let the matter drop. Work to find an agreeable alternate time.
3. Reframe having someone fill in for a vacationing coworker as an opportunity to learn new skills, try out other positions, take on responsibility, and gain valuable experience.
4. In planning for one employee’s vacation, emphasize that the system is only fair if everyone takes a turn and ask who is next.
5. Explain to new employees and re-explain to long-term employees the process of requesting time off.
6. Take and talk about your own vacation. Encourage other leaders to do the same. This helps create a vacation-friendly culture.
7. Don’t make people who take time off feel guilty by only rewarding workers who burn the candle at both ends. When you praise a job well done, suggest the person being praised reward himself with some well-earned time off.
8. When someone returns from a vacation, don’t dump loads of work on her right away or complain about how awful things were when she was gone. Let the vacation glow last as long as possible by listening to her stories and reaffirming that her get-away was well deserved.
Judy Kneiszel is an associate editor with J. J. Keller & Associates, a nationally recognized compliance resource firm. Kneiszel specializes in business topics such as recruiting and hiring, onboarding and training, team building, employee retention, and labor relations. She is the editor of J. J. Keller’s SUPER adVISORnewsletter and Essentials of Employee Relations manual. For more information, visit www.jjkeller.com/hr andwww.jjkellerlibrary.com.