What One Company Learned from Forcing Employees to Use Their Vacation Time

Have you ever felt burned out at work after a vacation? I’m not talking about being exhausted from fighting with your family at Walt Disney World all week. I’m talking about how you knew, the whole time walking around Epcot, that a world of work was waiting for you upon your return.

Our vacation systems are completely broken. They don’t work.

The classic corporate vacation system goes something like this: You get a set number of vacation days a year (often only two to three weeks), you fill out some 1996-era form to apply for time off, you get your boss’s signature, and then you file it with a team assistant or log it in some terrible database. It’s an administrative headache. Then most people have to frantically cram extra work into the week(s) before they leave for vacation in order to actually extract themselves from the office. By the time we finally turn on our out-of-office messages, we’re beyond stressed, and we know that we’ll have an even bigger pile of work waiting for us when we return. What a nightmare.

For most of us, it’s hard to actually use vacation time to recharge. So it’s no wonder that absenteeism remains a massive problem for most companies, with payrolls dotted with sick leaves, disability leaves, and stress leaves. In the UK, the Department for Work and Pensions says that absenteeism costs the country’s economy more than £100 billion per year. A white paper published by the Workforce Institute and produced by Circadian, a workforce solutions company, calls absenteeism a bottom-line killer that costs employers $3,600 per hourly employee and $2,650 per salaried employee per year. It doesn’t help that, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, the United States is the only country out of 21 wealthy countries that doesn’t require employers to offer paid vacation time. (Check out this world map on Wikipedia to see where your country stacks up.)

Would it help if we got more paid vacation? Not necessarily. According to a study from the U.S. Travel Association and GfK, a market research firm, just over 40% of Americans plan not to use all their paid time off anyway.

So what’s the progressive approach?

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Article Written by: Neil Pasricha & Shashank Nigam
Article Published On: Harvard Business Review, August 11, 2017
Article Spotted by: Alison Peters

Unlimited Vacation Policy? What You Should Know

Like an increasing number of employers these days, your workplace may offer a flexible or "unlimited" vacation policy. The idea: You're free to take as much time off as you choose, as long as you get the job done. It's a focus on producing great results, rather than just putting in the hours.

At my company, ZenPayroll, we feel that our flexible vacation policy helps build an ownership mentality. We want our employees to think like owners and consider what's best for both themselves and the company. Letting them figure out their own vacation time shows that we trust and respect them, which in turn strengthens their commitment to the company.

Other businesses are finding similar benefits. Netflix, for instance, lets its salaried employees take as much time off as they want—and nobody, including managers or employees, tracks it. "We should focus on what people get done, not how many hours or days worked," the company said in a slideshow called "Freedom & Responsibility Culture."

From an employee perspective, however, figuring out how to use your company's flexible vacation policy may be challenging. How can you maximize this great perk your company offers without giving your managers or teammates the impression you're abusing it?

Here are some guidelines to help.

Article Spotted By: Alison Peters
Article Written By: Joshua Reeves
Article Published On: The Muse

Want to know more about Unlimited PTO? 

Join HR Options' webinar on July 20th, where employment law specialist Jeanine DeBacker will take a deeper dive into popular Unlimited PTO programs - and how your company can implement and manage them. Register now!