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U.S. Employees Not Taking Enough Vacation

A vacation provides much needed time away from work that allows people to relax and re-energize themselves so that when they get back to work they are motivated and energetic. Going by this philosophy it is crucial for the success of any small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal businesses, that its employees get adequate time off from work.

While employees from businesses across the globe enjoy their vacation time U.S. office workers find it rather difficult to move out of their office. According to Hewitt Associates most American firms offer their employees only 10 days of leave every year. A stark contrast to the 30 days mandatory leave in Austria, Finland and France and the 20 day government mandated vacation provide in countries such as U.K, Australia and Brazil.

“The U.S. doesn’t have any kind of federal law that requires employers to offer any vacation at all,” says Carol Sladek, a senior work-life consultant for Hewitt.

An Expedia.com survey has some interesting information to report, even when U.S. employees were offered leave 35% did not take the paid leave. Often the reason for such behavior is that there isnít enough support at work for employees to go on vacation. While this may be a good show of commitment in the long run the businesses actually suffer.

Small-, micro-, home and SOHO businesses need to ensure that they offer employees adequate paid leave and that it is taken. This lowers the chances of burn out and also of stress related illness. Flexible working conditions and good business infrastructure also help achieve the same.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 16th, 2007 at 8:46 am and is filed under Employment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.