The Business Case for Taking Time Off

Any athlete or physical fitness guru will tell you that training is part of the process. But did you know when you exercise, you are creating small tears in the muscle that require rest to rebuild? Though it seems counterintuitive, if you avoid taking time away from the gym you could miss out on results critical to your success, or even worse, be faced with an overuse injury. Similarly, rest and recovery are crucial for the success of leaders, and their teams. ?

In this article you will see combined research from several sources which outline the benefits for you, your business, and your career when prioritizing time away. You will also receive tangible leadership tactics that map out how you can cultivate an environment which encourages your team to take the time necessary to recharge. ?

1. A Positive, Engaged Brain Improves Important Business Metrics. ?

Time off actually makes you more productive – seems counterintuitive, right? However, by disassociating with your work you become more resilient when faced with stressors, and more engaged while performing your job duties, making you more productive. In the Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor shares research that shows when the brain can think positively, productivity improves by 31%, sales increase by 37%, and creativity and revenues can triple. In fact, the conclusion of Positive Intelligence (which is based on a decade of research) is “the greatest competitive advantage in the modern economy is a positive and engaged brain.” To be truly engaged with your work, your brain needs periodic breaks to gain fresh perspective and energy. ?

2. Time Away Increases Creativity and Innovation. ?

Aside from improving business metrics, taking time off can also boost your creativity.?Across countries and industries, creativity is the?most significant?trait CEOs?say they are looking for in?all incoming employees?according to the author of The Creativity Challenge, Kyung?Hee?Kim. Kyung’s book demonstrates that we are amid a “creativity crisis” as a result of creativity scores dropping significantly in the past three years. Could more time away be the answer? ?

Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, author of Positivity has shown that positive, relaxing experiences can make us more inventive and able to think outside of the box. “Brain imaging studies show that doing nothing, being idle, daydreaming and relaxing create alpha waves in the brain that are key to creative insights and innovative breakthroughs.” And there’s no shortage of neuroscience to support this. PET scans and MRS tell us that “aha” moments come during a relaxed state of mind. ?

In addition to the scientific evidence, the artistic outputs are undeniable. At Columbia Business School, Professor Adam Galinsky has conducted numerous studies linking travel to innovation. “Foreign experiences increase both cognitive flexibility, depth and integrative thought - the ability to make deep connections between disparate forms…” Galinsky discovered that creative directors of high-end fashion houses located in other countries produced more consistently creative fashion lines. “The key, critical process is multicultural engagement, immersion, and adaptation, says Galinsky. Someone who lives abroad and doesn’t engage with the local culture will likely get less of a creative boost than someone who travels abroad and really engages in the local environment.” While taking time away, exploration of new areas, specifically international experiences, can diversify your interests and boost your creativity. ?

3. Time Away is Actually Good for Your Career.

Most corporate environments can be fast-paced - filled with early mornings, late nights, and odd hours in between. There often comes an unspoken rule that doing more, faster, with less, will yield you greater success, but it’s time to challenge these assumptions with what the data truly tells us about the importance of taking time to slow down and recharge. ?

• You are 30% more likely to receive a raise if you take 11+ PTO days. ?
• Employees who take all their vacation time have 6.5% greater chance getting promoted or receiving a raise than their peers. ?

So how could this be? Your boss likely places an extremely high value on personal happiness, and in addition, associates your personal happiness with your productivity. When asked what vacation benefit motivated managers to talk to their employees about using more of their PTO days, personal happiness came in first place at 31%, followed by increased employee productivity at 21%. Most leaders understand that a happy and engaged workforce is good for business, and PTO is the perfect vehicle to deliver both. ?

Where (and Why) Do We Fall Short? ?

After hearing all of this, you may wonder ‘why all the fuss?’ It’s clear the data supports taking time off; yet despite the overwhelming evidence, Americans have become increasingly bad at taking time away. ?

New research states that unused PTO has cost U.S. businesses ~$224 billion a year, and that number is on the rise. Americans have fewer vacation days than any other country on the planet, and the amount of vacation we take has continued to decline over the past two decades. 26% of American workers had reportedly never taken two weeks off at one time while 84% of U.S. Executives had cancelled their vacations due to work demands. These alarming statistics not only show that American workers are unable to take off, but we are also unable to fully disengage (41% checking emails while on PTO). It’s no wonder The Center for Economic and Policy Research has coined the United States the?“No Vacation Nation.” ?

Where Do We Go from Here? ?

It is up to each of us to lean into strategies that cultivate a culture which normalizes time off. Demonstrating what good looks like on the individual level, encouraging our teams to take the time they need, and creating an environment that recognizes and rewards the intentionality behind bringing the best version of yourself to work each day. There are a few strategies I gleaned from the HBR article, Managers Encourage Your Team to Take Time Off that I believe to be particularly helpful: ?

• Redefine “Vacations.” Vacations used to mean trips to a tropical island (and hey, they still absolutely can). But normalizing time off to focus on self-care, family time, physical activity, and mental health should be just as encouraged. Recognizing when to take this time yourself, and encouraging your associates to do so, will help you and your team to avoid burnout. ?
• Demonstrate Care. As a leader, it’s your job to lean?in to?the sentiment and individual needs on your team. Empower your associates to navigate the ever-present ambiguity around PTO. Help them?make a plan, get coverage, and reassure them that taking time off is important to their success and something you value. ?
• Model Behaviors. Take PTO as part of being a good leader? Twist my arm. In all seriousness, creating ‘availability boundaries’ for yourself by logging off at certain times and avoiding odd email windows will cultivate and model behaviors for your team to feel balance. Demonstrate your choices by intentionally acknowledging your time away during an?all hands?meeting, share pictures or a verbal update about your vacation. All of this can role model the behaviors you wish to see from your team. ?
• Activate a Team. Cultivating an environment where your associates feel supported by one another and have coverage while away is one of the many ways to eliminate the post-PTO woes. Encourage your team to establish backup points of contact in?their?out of office, hand off short term deliverables, and avoid email monitoring while on vacation. By integrating support during time away, you will by default begin to generate even more support while your associates are at work – creating a collaborative, generous, mission-first organization. ?

In Conclusion ?

In conclusion, the business case is overwhelming – taking time away to genuinely detach from work will help to foster a more creative workforce, yielding greater results, with increased productivity and well-being, while also providing career benefits on the individual level. Ironically, taking time away allows us to be more present, it’s good for our people, and it’s great for business.?