On the Clock Skipping Vacation Time Hinders Health, Productivity

When it comes to vacations, Patti D’Amaddio said, there’s good news and bad news.

The good news is that employees are being offered more time off than in years past.

“It used to be that you earned two weeks after a year of work, but not so much anymore,” said D’Amaddio, director of Strategic HR Services at the Employers Assoc. of the NorthEast. “A lot of companies are now giving time off during the initial period of employment, as opposed to waiting a year.”

Not only that, but EANE surveys show that the average employee in the region gets bumped up to three weeks off after five years on the job. “It used to be 10, but that’s come down.”

The bad news? Too many workers today are leaving vacation on the table, unused, because they feel like they can’t afford to take time off — and it could be affecting their physical and mental health.

According to an online poll by Right Management, a division of ManpowerGroup, 69{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} of respondents did not take all their vacation time in 2013 — consistent with the 70{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} reported who reported the same in 2011 and 2012 — while just 31{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} said they maxed out their time.

“Not taking time off regularly can lead to serious health problems,” notes Timi Gustafson, a registered dietitian, author, and blogger. “The results are comparable to chronic stress, when there is no reprieve not just from one’s workload but also from repetitive routines.”

Matt Norquist, general manager at Right Management, says that kind of health impact makes vacation essentially a productivity issue for businesses. In other words, it’s not just employees who benefit from vacations, but also their companies, because they workers to be happier and more productive on the job when they’re occasionally able to step away from it.

And it’s not just mental health at stake; chronic stress takes its toll on the body’s ability to resist infections, maintain vital functions, and even avoid injuries, noted Dr. Susan Krauss Whitbourne, a professor of Psychology at UMass Amherst.

“When you’re stressed out and tired, you are more likely to become ill, your arteries take a beating, and you’re more likely to have an accident,” she writes in Psychology Today. “Your sleep will suffer, you won’t digest your food as well, and even the genetic material in the cells of your body may start to become altered in a bad way.”

In addition, she notes, “not only do you become more irritable, depressed, and anxious, but your memory will become worse, and you’ll make poorer decisions. You’ll also be less fun to be with, causing you to become more isolated, lonely, and depressed.”

Not exactly a recipe for success on the job — or a particularly pleasant workplace.

So, what’s going on to contribute to what seems like a self-defeating employee trend?

“No question, every company is doing more with less. They have to remain as competitive as they can with foreign countries. It’s not easy for businesses, and it isn’t easy for employees,” D’Amaddio said, by way of explaining why employees might be loath to take earned time off.

Richard Goldstein, vice president of Benefits at MassMutual, said his company, one of the region’s largest employers, emphasizes the value of time off.

“We periodically send notes out to the managers, reminders to encourage their employees to take their time. And, for the most part, the people in my group do.”

Many American workers aren’t hearing this message, or are choosing to ignore it. U.S. workers left an average of 12 vacation days unused this year, double the number from 2011, according to a survey conducted by travel website Hotwire. Some of these days can be rolled into the following year, but that’s no guarantee they will be used.

“Financial pressures often put a burden on travel plans, and this is causing an alarming increase in Americans leaving vacation days unused,” said Henrik Kjellberg, president of the Hotwire Group. “This is a trend I am hoping will soon change.”

What is changing is the way companies are structuring vacation time, D’Amaddio told HCN. For one thing, fewer employers allow employees to take their entire allotment of vacation right away.

“A lot of companies have gone to the accrual formula, accruing time each month or each pay period,” she said, noting that this makes sense in Massachusetts, where employers are legally obligated to pay out unused vacation time as wages when an employee is terminated. “Instead of giving somebody two full weeks of vacation, then having them leave the next day, the accrual formula avoids that.”

In addition to a shift toward accrued time off, she noted, many employers are beginning to blend vacation time, sick days, and personal days into one pot, simply calling it ‘paid time off.’

“Again, there benefits for some parties, like people who are never sick,” she said, as well as people who don’t enjoy lying to their bosses. “Why make employees call in sick when their kid’s sick? Or if they suddenly got tickets to the Patriots, and they have to schedule their vacation days in advance? This gives people more flexibility.”

MassMutual, as an organization, has long expressed a philosophy of valuing work-life balance, and making sure employees take time off is one aspect of that, Goldstein noted. “I personally think vacation is healthy, and I encourage my folks to make sure they’re not leaving days on the table. I think it’s important to recharge.”

Matt Norquist, general manager at Right Management, agrees that spending significant time away from work carries many benefits, including increased productivity.

 “Every employee at every level should be encouraged to take time to re-energize, recharge, and relax to be more satisfied and productive on the job,” he said. “The importance of vacation cannot be understated in today’s workplace when companies are doing more with less and adding workloads to their teams.”

Krauss Whitbourne agrees. “Vacations have the potential to break into the stress cycle,” she writes. “We emerge from a successful vacation feeling ready to take on the world again. We gain perspective on our problems, get to relax with our families and friends, and get a break from our usual routines.”

According to Norquist, taking vacation time is a vital part of maintaining job satisfaction, and employees who take time off are more inspired and motivated to do their best work. “Ultimately, vacations contribute to engaged, loyal, and satisfied employee teams and build a positive workplace culture that not only reduces turnover, but also creates a stronger brand image in the market.”

The catch, Goldstein said, is that some employees never really stop working, even when they’re on vacation, because of e-mail and cell phones. “They never check out in today’s work world. With their remote devices, they’re always in tune.”

D’Amaddio cited one EANE-client company that requires every employee to take at least one full week off, and to shut off all e-mail and cell-phone access to work during that time. “That’s because there’s time off, and then there’s really time off,” she said. “Many people never shut down. When you’re engaged at work with smartphones and e-mail and everything else, you’re not really off.”

It all comes down to what kind of work-life culture an employer is really trying to create, she explained.

“The company and HR should really ask, ‘do we have a problem? Are our people using their time, or are a lot of people carrying it over? If they are, why? Is it just this year, or is there a history, and why? What kind of culture do we want to set?’

“If they want to set a culture stressing morale and work-life balance, they will want people to take vacation time,” D’Amaddio continued. “The culture is set at the top, whether that’s the top of the department or the top of the company.”

A major part of that is making sure department heads clearly express the importance of taking time off, she said. “And your HR department should be measuring the impact in terms of turnover and retention. Why are employees leaving? It’s great to have time off, but what if you can’t take it?”

If the tide turns and employees start taking more of the vacation time they’ve earned, she added, it will likely be the Millennials, the youngest generation in the workforce, who lead the charge.

“They want that. As Baby Boomers, we’re more willing to give up time, but Millennials are not going to be so inclined. So the paradigm is going to switch, and we need to understand that.”

Such a shift would be a healthy change, in more ways than one.