Please, Take Your Paid Time Off (If You Have It)
It’s just sitting there. Take it.
A new study from travel industry trade group Project Time Off presents some distressing facts about paid time off and employees’ reluctance to use it.
The High Price of Silence: Analyzing the Business Implications of an Under-Vacationed Workforce
Bosses and managers are incredibly supportive of taking time off for vacation, but their actions rarely match their words. According to the study, a staggering 91% of bosses say that they “actively encourage” their employees to take time off, but only 43% of them talk to their employees about vacation once a year. 93% of bosses feel it’s important to take time off, but 59% of them left vacation time on the table. All of this is to say that employees are hearing a lot of mixed messages about whether or not it’s okay to take time off, even when it’s sitting there: 68% of non-managers say they hear “nothing, negative or mixed messages” about taking time off.
In an interview with Mic, Project Time Off senior director Kate Denis said that many employees don’t take time off because of anxiety over job security. Current work culture places a premium on constant availability — just because you’ve left the office doesn’t mean that your email stops dinging your phone as you try to watch TV. Paid time off is a perk that employers actually want you to take.
Another report from Project Time Off says that the private sector has $272 billion in unpaid time off. Not good! Not good at all. ““Beyond the red mark on balance sheets, not taking time off hurts employee engagement and productivity, affects talent retention, and expedites burnout — all of which hurt a company’s bottom line,” Denis wrote. While all of this sounds true and probably is, keep in mind that Project Time Off is sponsored by the U.S Travel Association. Pushing the idea of vacations as a necessity rather than an indulgence helps their bottom line. But! That philosophy isn’t bad. It’s just a gentle kick in the pants for us to reframe the way we think about vacations, time off and what we do or do not deserve.
The implication, of course, that taking time off work means actually going somewhere, spending money that you may not quite have in order to “do a vacation.” A vacation is simply time that you are not working — free time, time that is all yours, to do what you want, free from obligation. You could sit in your house for the entire time and deep clean the hall closet or teach yourself how to make macarons at home. You could get on a train and go away for one day and come back having seen something other than the three block radius outside your house. Clearing your head doesn’t have to cost a thing; being away from work is priceless.
There’s nothing terrifically noble about working without taking a vacation, esepcially if it is yours for the taking. Hey, do you have time off? Go check. Seriously, go check. Yeah? Great. Take it. Take the time off.
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