A Vacation Mindset?

Is there such a thing as a vacation mindset? Last week, I was doing a conference in Lima about Mindset, specifically about Growth and Owner Mindset. Mindset is our attitude about something, driven by our mental models about that thing. Despite our brain’s plasticity, our mental models develop mostly when we are young by the environment and culture we are in. Does the American culture have a vacation mindset? If not, could that be developed for the mental health and wellbeing of employees in this country?

In last few days, I have been reading some interesting articles about the vacation attitude in the US vs other countries in the world such as Europe , which I know well.

Many of the articles have a component of best practices when taking vacation to be able to disconnect and restore our mental health, but in my view, the problem of why Americans take less vacation than other countries (and are unable to truly disconnect during their time off) is due to their mindset, and this could be hard to change.

Annual Vacation Deprivation report reveals Americans are battling burnout by giving themselves permission to PTO. The 2022 Expedia study, that surveyed more than 14,500 working adults across 16 countries, says that that 2022 is promising to be the year Americans take back control of how they find joy during vacations and give themselves permission to take their PTO. I am pessimistic about this however, because I think we are facing a cultural problem. In my view, the current “burnout epidemic” is exacerbated by Covid and remote work, but it is grounded in a cultural aspect about life and work.

Early retirement:

In the US, it is common to see people pushing through their work life to achieve financial independence and retire as early as they can. The mentality many times is: “when I retire, I can do whatever I want”. On the contrary, in Europe, people accept that you may be retiring at an older age, but you are not willing to trade your life for it.

Consider this story about a Mexican fisherman, which I use to tell my MBA students when I was teaching at EADA Business School :

A consultant was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a boat with just one fisherman docked.?Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tunas. The consultant complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied, "Only a little while."

The consultant then asked why he didn't stay out longer and catch more fish.

The Mexican said he had enough to support his family's immediate needs.

The consultant then asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"

To what the fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life."

The consultant scoffed, "I am a management consultant, and I can help you.?You should spend more time fishing and with the earnings, buy a bigger boat, with the earnings from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then Los Angeles and eventually New York City where you will run your expanding enterprise."

The Mexican fisherman asked, "And how long will this all take?"

To which the consultant replied, "Oh! 15 to 20 years."

"And what then?"

The consultant laughed and said: "That’s the best part! when the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions."

"Millions? And then what?"

The consultant said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

I always found this story very funny and very real.

Minimum paid vacation by country:

I think that the early retirement mindset is only one of the symptoms of the no-vacation culture. There are other factors that contribute to the fact that Americans are not taking as much vacation as other countries. For instance, in the US there is a flexible and libertarian labor market, where companies don’t have to pay employees any severance if they get fired. In most of Europe (especially the countries with more vacation time), this is the opposite. The labor market is very regulated, and employers cannot easily get rid of employees. This is obviously good and bad as entrepreneurship is easier and less risky in the US, which fuels the economy, but the natural reaction for somebody working in the US is to want to accumulate a few weeks or months in the PTO bank to use it in case you leave or are asked to leave. Or keep a safety cushion for a medical emergency that requires you to take an extended time off.

One of the articles I read suggested that the U.S. is lagging so far behind in PTO usage because it is the “only advanced economy that does not mandate any paid vacation time for workers.” ?See the chart below, published by Aarthi Swaminathan on June 10, 2019. On one side of the sample, you find Spain (my home country) with almost 40 days of paid vacation time, while in the other extreme you see the US with a beautiful zero (0).

The great resignation and the unlimited vacation policy:

I was recently talking with a couple of friends that left their respective jobs and are starting a new company together. They told me that one of the reasons for doing that was work-life balance (to be able to spend more time with their kids), and to be able to take several weeks’ vacation a year without the pressure to having to justify it.

Being born and raised in Barcelona, I don’t have the mental block that my colleagues in this country have when they take vacation. Every single year of my life, I have taken a minimum of 4 weeks’ vacation a year. And most years about 6 weeks counting the summer period and the winter break.

I even took a 5-month sabbatical when I was working at HP to ride with my wife all the Pan-American Highway on a motorcycle, from Ushuaia to Alaska. This is without a doubt one of the best things I have done in my life, and I remember crossing a fellow rider on another motorcycle traveling in the opposite direction. He was a 65-year-old man that told us that he had been dreaming of doing this trip all his life but “couldn’t” find the time to do it until he retired.

I don’t think the unlimited vacation policy will solve this historical trend because of what I said in the beginning; this is an attribute of the American culture that brings with it peer pressure and other reinforcing mechanisms, and these are very difficult to shift. On the contrary, if a company like the Center for Creative Leadership , were I work now, has a 4-week vacation policy, that expands to 5-weeks after 5 years of employment, and that comes with a use it or lose it pressure, then there is certain pressure to take your vacation. I may be wrong on this, what do you think?

There is some good news thanks to the, current “Great Resignation ” movement we have seen in the US and other places. People were forced to work from home during the period of the pandemic, and during that time, started to think and reflect about other lifestyles that were not possible before, like working from a lake house, or traveling to Italy to visit extended family and working from there for 2 extra weeks. American adults finally have started thinking that it should be normal to integrate life and work.

Ok, I will leave you with one more story!

Back in 2003, I asked HP, where I was working to work 4 days a week (32h from Monday to Thursday) to be able to do my own things on Friday. Back then, I wanted to use the time to teach more hours in business schools, but I’m sure I would have used some of those Fridays to go skiing without the crowds. I offered to reduce my salary by 20%, corresponding with the hourly reduction, but I would deliver the same amount of work. I was not asking for less responsibility! Guess what was their response? And then, in 2005 I decided to leave the organization. It was not only due to that, but they could have certainly retained me with such an accommodation. “An accommodation” to pay me less to do the same job!

As always, I’d love to hear your reactions, whether you agree or disagree with some of my comments.

#work ?#mentalhealth ?#productivity #worklife #workculture #worklifebalance