A new study suggests that you may experience what I call vacation frustration during your time off from work. The research, from Fierce Inc., found that 58% of respondents say they receive no stress relief from vacations.
More than 1,000 executives and employees from fields including finance, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, education, and defense took part in the survey. The results suggest that people can’t unplug during their vacations:
- 27.3 percent of employees feel more stressed after vacations.
- 41.6 percent of workers check in with the office at least every other day.
- Only 25.8 percent don’t check in even once.
The pressures of work will always exist but they shouldn’t invade your time off. In successful organizations, you’ll find an understanding that time off produces good results when someone returns to the job.
Creating this kind of culture requires a commitment to end vacation frustration. Consider these tips to get you started:
Identify Backups
Unexpected work may come up during someone’s vacation but is that person the only one who can address the task? Is there another employee who can do the work? This is better than putting out a vacation interrupting call for help or allowing important tasks to pile up on a desk.
A backup is likely the person who would assume the duties if the vacationing employee had to leave the job suddenly due to a family emergency.
It’s important that everyone has a backup and there are periodic trainings on the required duties. You can’t expect someone to perform a job that he or she doesn’t know. Also, it helps if it’s a reciprocal arrangement.
The vacationing employee must make sure work is caught up before the departure. There should be no dumping of undesirable tasks on the backup.
Limit Email
Within an organization, can people limit the number of emails sent to a vacationing employee? Let’s say someone is out of the office for ten business days and one colleague sends two messages per day. That’s 20 emails filling the inbox from one person.
What if those daily messages could be combined into a weekly email? That could reduce the number of messages from 20 to 2.
While it takes more time and thought to put together a weekly summary email, you’ll make life easier for the returning employee and likely receive a faster response to any issues. No one likes to return to an exploding inbox and that leads many to check their email while on vacation.
Set the Tone
Come up with a vacation policy that can be communicated to employees. Everyone needs to buy into it because if a couple of people go rogue and work while on vacation, then it will soon become the norm for all. This may be your biggest challenge.
Help Create a Smooth Return
While a vacation shouldn’t stop business, make sure you’re not overwhelming the returning employee. Their schedule should have some free time for catching up. Meetings should also be limited.
Final Thought
Vacations should be enjoyed and allow employees to recharge and feel good about going back to work. Vacation frustration shouldn’t be part of the job.
Maybe it’s time to bring Ken Okel to your next meeting…
