All work, no play makes Jack and Jill sick workers

MANDY Smith* has about 35 days of annual leave owed to her. Considering she gets about 20 days a year, that is quite a lot to have amassed.

As a recently divorced woman with no children, she finds the odd long weekend enough time away from work, and has even cancelled leave when her boss told her she could not take time off because there would be no one to cover for her.

Colin Chala*, on the other hand, is usually “in the red” with his annual leave. Married, with two young children and a wife who also works, he views time away from work and with his family as a precious commodity that he guards jealously.

No prizes for guessing who is in better shape emotionally and psychologically. Working week after week and taking little time off from the daily grind of the office is not good for you. It can, according to various studies, lead to burnout, heart disease and a compromised immune system.

Andi Bengis, a stressmanagement consultant, often sees the result of this in her practice. “Most people make a habit of regularly charging their cellphones and tablets so they are fully charged in the morning, but we rarely think that we need to recharge our ‘batteries’ to work optimally,” she says.

“Studies have shown that if people don’t take regular vacations, they are eight times more likely to suffer from depression and have a 50% higher chance of heart disease.”

The result of overwork, according to Bengis, is burnout, which can include exhaustion, chronic headaches, back and neck pain and a weaker immune system, which means you are more likely to catch any flu or cold bugs doing the rounds and it will take longer to recover from them.

In fact, overwork can be fatal. “The Japanese have a term, karoshi, which is death from overwork — people dying of strokes and cardiac failure in the workplace as a result of working too hard for too many hours or never taking a break,” says Bengis.

Despite this, some people believe in giving their all to their employer, and some companies are happy to reap the rewards of never having to cope without key members of staff. But if people end up too ill to work because they are not taking any leave, both employees and employers lose out.

“People who do not take leave end up taking sick leave, which can become expensive for their employers,” says Bengis.

Occupational Care South Africa estimates that employee absenteeism costs the South African economy between R12-billion and R16billion a year, so any theory that never leaving your post is for the best of the company is seriously flawed.

But staff cutbacks through retrenchments and job freezes mean that people are stretched even when everyone is at work. Add in the tough economic conditions, which make

If people don’t take regular vacations, they are more likely to suffer from depression and heart disease

employees grateful to be employed at all, and there are many people willing to show their dedication by working long hours and skipping leave.

Johan Botes, director of employment law at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, says companies need to understand how emotive leave issues can be. “It is sound employee-relations practice to allow employees to request to take leave when it suits them. Annual leave is always an emotive issue and employers of choice develop systems to ensure that annual leave is allocated fairly and equitably.”

However, according to the law, employers are within their rights to grant or refuse requests to take annual leave based on operational requirements.

The Basic Conditions of Employment Act provides the statutory framework for annual leave in South Africa.

According to the act, companies must ensure that all employees who work more than 24 hours a month have at least 21 calendar days (which translates into 15 working days) of annual leave in every annual leave cycle.

The value of entitled leave (the leave earned by employees, but not yet exercised) must be reflected as a liability in the company’s books, so is in effect a current liability for the company, says Morag Phillips, the executive director at pay solutions company 21st Century.

To manage the system, “most organisations do not allow employees to go into leave debt, and if they do, there is typically a maximum of 10% that can be ‘borrowed’,” says Phillips.

Companies will also typically ensure that leave is taken within a specified time to ensure employees do not “bank” too much leave, which is a liability for the company.

* Names have been changed at the individual’s request.