Employees Need Vacation, But Are Employers Enabling Time Out of the Office?

For those of us with jobs in competitive fields or high-growth companies, the thought of taking a vacation can be stressful. Between keeping teams engaged, investors happy, and hitting key project milestones, it feels like there’s never a good time to take a break from work. It’s such a big problem that this year, the WHO announced that “Burnout” will be listed as an occupational phenomenon in the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases.

That’s why the role technology plays in vacations has been fiercely debated since the days of email, and even more so since the rise of the cloud and mobile. Some say that technology like mobile devices have tethered us permanently to our jobs, making it impossible to get away from the stressors of work. Others say they’ve liberated us to enjoy more flexible work schedules and blend work and life so that we can maintain careers while exploring the world.

A survey from 2018sheds some light on the debate, and some of the data seems to support the argument that technology forces us to stay connected when we don’t want to be. When asked about work habits on vacation, 22% of respondents said they spend a few minutes each day working, usually sending short responses to questions or forwarding time-sensitive emails to someone at the office. Another 24% said they don’t intend to work, but will reply to emails or phone calls from their boss. These actions seem small, but they all detract from thebenefitsof a truly disconnected vacation.

Findings from amore recent surveymight provide support for the opposing view. This year, 62% of respondents said that the digital tools they use in the workplace helped very or extremely well in preparing their teams for time away from the office, which may mean the majority of workers feel that digital work has actually improved their ability to disconnect. 

If you’re trying to build a culture that embraces vacation and allows your workforce to relax without interruption, here are some tips that can transform the way your business operates with team members on vacation.

Preparation is the key to a disconnected vacation

In the age of digital work vacation requires preparation, usually in the form of aggregating information about projects from many digital locations into a centralized place so colleagues can find it in your absence. While it sounds easy, the majority (54%) of employees described their stress level as very high or extremely high compared to normal in the days leading up to vacation, showing that this kind of information if frequently difficult to find.

Since preparation is the difference between a disconnected vacation and one with constant work interruptions, companies that value employee time off should think about ways they can support the preparation process. The most simple way is to keep project data centralized at all times with a work management system that keeps this information organized from the start of a project.

Management must lead by example and disconnect on vacation

Employees are more likely to work on vacation if their managers work on vacation, with millennials 36% more likely than older generations to saytheir managers influence themon vacation. Since millennials are the largest generation in the workforce and also37% more likelyto feel guilty about taking a vacation, it’s important that you give them permission to take time off and disconnect. Management must align from the top down to lead by example, and especially respect boundaries of those who are on vacation by not pinging them daily through digital channels. 

An important strategy that both managers and employees can use to help disconnect is to set clear expectations about whether or not they’ll work on vacation. If you are in the midst of a critical project, set defined times in advance when you’ll be reachable, and establish rules for what people should ping you about. These boundaries help keep everyone on the same page about what constitutes an “emergency” and help vacationing workers segment their days into “work time” and “relax time.”

One of the most preventable causes for vacation work is poor planning - and not by vacationers themselves. When management and team members don’t see their needs coming far enough in advance to prepare for the absence of a mission-critical colleague, it’s the vacation that suffers. That’s why an overall improvement of process and project management and investment in visibility can pay dividends on keeping projects moving forward in the summer, when employees frequently take turns with time spent out of the office.

Employees can help themselves by giving early, frequent reminders about their vacation plans, so they don’t surprise anyone by being unavailable. If you have visibility into upcoming projects, you can try to tackle work early, or work with stakeholders to schedule tasks around your time off.

Leaving for vacation isn’t the only stressful part. 45% of survey respondents said that returning to work after vacation also brings about significantly higher stress levels than usual. This may also be the result of the need to spend time reviewing messages to make sure nothing critical has fallen through the cracks. Reduce this kind of stress by sending your communications to a single feed, so there’s only one place to check when you return. You can do this using tools like Zapier to automate message replication between apps, or encouraging your team to push critical messages through the channel that you use the most. 

Vacations are an important part of wellness for employees. It’s also necessary to attract and retain talent, who say that PTO is the mostimportant perk a workplace can offer.Companies and leadership must share this value to help workers truly disconnect for restful vacations in the digital age. 

Source: Forbes.com

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