Author: Jake Richardson / Source: Big Think
It wasn’t long ago that many Americans took vacations and looked forward to them. Summer sojourns were very common — road trips, in particular. Swarms of families would take long driving excursions to the Grand Canyon, the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, and Yosemite.
These vacations frequently included several destinations and lasted at least a week, sometimes two.For whatever reasons, perhaps more economic than anything else, fewer American workers are taking their vacation time. The 2008 Great Recession was nearly a depression and its after-effects lasted for years when the official economic downturn ended. The recession around the year 2001 wasn’t nearly as severe, but having two economic declines in a row didn’t help us Americans feel comfortable in taking time off.In fact, there has been some research conducted demonstrating that too many American workers are not taking off the time they need to relax and rejuvenate. A survey conducted by Kimble of 1,200 full-time employees who work for companies offering paid vacation time generated some concerning insights. One was that about 47% had not used their full vacation time last year. Slightly over 20% had more than five days of vacation banked. Some of the reasons for these behaviors identified by the survey were:-Having too much work to complete to take time off (27%)
-Feeling pressured by an employer or manager not to take time off (19%)
-Fearing there will be too much work after returning (13%)
Actress Nadja Tiller at the wheel of a car with her daughter Natascha, as her husband Walter Giller looks on, during their vacation at the Lido in Venice, August 23rd 1962. (Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Even for the ones who said they did take some vacation time, there were some significant issues.
Almost half said they check in on work while on vacation — almost 20% said they do this every day. Nearly 30% said they do so periodically. In a sense, these choices defeat the purpose of going on vacation.Some of the beliefs the surveyed employees had which contributed to such vacation-related attitudes and behaviors were:-Believing that not taking time off would be good for their careers (14%)
-Believing that giving up vacation time for a year would be right to get a promotion (19%)Some of the more unfortunate insights were that about 7% were nervous their vacation requests would not be approved and 29% were expected to be on call for emergencies. Employers themselves can inadvertently contribute to employee expectations and fears about vacation time by the kind of company cultures they have. Broadly speaking, company culture is a combination of values, communication styles, management styles, discourse, organizational structure, roles, objectives, strategy, goals and products or services.
Kimble co-founder Mark Robinson provided some tips about how to have an intentional company culture to encourage vacation time to be taken —
“It is a very simple thing but reminding employees to set up an email auto-reply which tells people the dates of their vacation and offers another contact for urgent queries makes a big difference,” said Robinson. “It sets expectations and reduces the amount of email that is likely to be waiting for them when they return.
It may be an idea…
The post No-vacation nation: why Americans aren’t taking vacations appeared first on FeedBox.