The Three Leadership Failures of Leaving Vacation Days Behind

An estimated 658 Million Days of Paid Time Off will go unused. The benefits to both employees and businesses for time off are well-documented. So why do so many employees leave so much behind? There are many reasons, and the root cause of most of the reasons are a failure of leadership. Here are the big three:

1. Poor planning. A quality leader needs to be good at planning - and this includes working with your employees to ensure they have the opportunity to take the time off that they earn. Vacation blackouts periods, work coverage needs, or customer needs all push back on the availability for people to take time off.
2. No or poor cross-training. Every company has people that are or believe they are mission-critical. If the office/plant/company will implode because one person takes a vacation day, that is an organizational failure. Sometimes those employees embrace their "indispensability" as job security, but they too, need to free their brains from work to recharge. Managers need to ensure essential functions are covered by a competent back up so the employee can be off - not absent employees spending their family vacation at the beach logging on and fixing problems back at the office. It's unhealthy and a big HR grey area.
3. Unhealthy corporate culture - or at least mixed messages from management. Many employees cite work/life balance as an important factor in job satisfaction (or voluntary turnover) . Employees cite fear as a reason they do not take time off - they think it will make them less likely to be promoted, more likely to be laid off, or feel guilty for "creating more work for others." Many managers are oblivious to their employees concerns, or tacitly encourage "work martyrs" who stay chained to their galley oar day after day.

As the labor market continues to tighten, the competition for talent is fierce. The majority of Gen-Xers and Millenials express time off as a very important employment perk to them. Companies that embrace time out of the office and encourage them to take the time they have earned will win in the long run by recruiting and retaining the best talent, and having them perform at their best.