DALLAS — It seems I always have a lot of projects in various stages of completion. Recently, I glanced at all the to-do items on the forever-spinning ‘Wheeler Wheel’, and I felt like it was running me over.
My life started flashing before my eyes! Actually, it was just my past vacation life I was seeing…all those memories of amazing time off. I think I am going to need another breather soon. But many of you are not taking your time!
A 2023 Pew survey found that almost half of American workers (46%) who have paid time off available don’t use it all. Some workers were afraid that taking off could make them lose their job or their chance for advancement.
Even more were worried about their absence causing a burden for co-workers or that time away would put them behind on their work when they returned. I take all my time, but I get those reasons.
But then there were these: Some reported they don’t use their days because supervisors discourage them from doing so and many said they don’t feel the need to take more time off. I just wrote that sentence about not needing to take more time off, but I don’t understand it at all, especially because statistics from Gallup last year contradicted that.
They found most of us (75%) are experiencing workplace burnout at least sometimes. Separately, they found that about 1 in 4 of us (26%) very often or always feel burned out at work.
As for managers who are discouraging the use of vacation time, several years ago, the Harvard Business Review reported on a small experiment where employees were forced to take one week off every seven weeks. They measured, and found creativity jumped 33%, happiness was up 25%, and productivity bumped up 13%.
However, in one psychological survey, many employees said the positive impact from their time away vanished within days of returning to work. I’ve been there.
The takeaway for experts there was that time off is important, but that employers also need to do more to help manage the stress loads for the majority of time that employees are not on vacation.
Finally, some PTO trivia: A study found the happiest employees last year took–on average–15 days of paid time off. Which means I am above average! I am going to need more than that to stay Right on the Money (and right on the mental!).