Vacation Time

6/29/2009 5:27 AM EDT

Come to Europe! We have 20 working days off every year and few sick-days (hangover??) as well.

6/29/2009 8:05 AM EDT

I worked for a Finnish company for 10 years and every summer the project work here would slow to a crawl because nearly everyone there was taking their summer break in Finland for 3-4 weeks. We were essentially put on hold. Contrary to their pronouncements, they didn't come back "refreshed". They came back not ready to work and completely out of the loop. Most took another couple of weeks to come back up to speed. Add this to the time lost due to the Winter 'break' and those who took off for military duties, I believe everyone easily lost 2 months every year that should have been productive time.

I think vacation should be longer in the U.S., but not to the extent of the Europeans.

6/29/2009 7:52 PM EDT

Jack,
Hmmm... tough questions! I find (as you mentioned) that two weeks is barely enough to get wound down. I just came back from a week off, and was at the point where I was looking back to sitting at the desk again. Why? Because most of the time was spent driving, babysitting (and I love my grandkids!) while my kids went & did stuff that THEY found hard to do with kids & a dog to deal with, helping one child move her apartment stuff into a storage unit, etc. My wife says that we need to take a "just us" vacation, but even that's hard, because other family members ask, "Why didn't you came and visit us?"
In addition, the emails & 'phone calls from work don't stop. I use the Outlook "out of office" function fro email, but that doesn't seem to faze anyone, and in my company we don't have a backup person for my particular area, so I choose to respond to keep things moving.
I don't know that there is any simple answer, and the "lean-sizing" that has become so popular has made it even more difficult (and guilt-inducing) to take large chunks of time off from work. Many years ago, I went on a one-week business trip & took two weeks of vacation time at the end of that. When I got back, my boss said "never again will you be allowed to do that!". So, it's bits here & there, sometimes turning a 3-day weekend into a 4-day, and saving time for Christmas.
Right now, with the economy being in the tank still, I'm glad to still have my job, even if the vacation schedule isn't what I'd like it to be!

6/30/2009 4:36 AM EDT

Two weeks annual vacation is tough when there is no flextime. Being european I also have worked a couple of years in the US, but during that time was only able to survive the official vacation scheme with great help from my boss, who also was an european expat there.
Here in Europe we use 3..4 weeks for big vacation(s) and the rest goes to smaller stuff, even days off to cover sickness of children. Though it sometimes is hard to get back to speed after 4 weeks of absence, an equal degree of stress is happening just before leaving: once it is known that a coworker will be away for longer, she or he is inundated with work requests that on themselves require at least 2 weeks of leave to recover!

6/30/2009 6:57 PM EDT

52 weeks of pay for 50 weeks of work seems much better than being paid nothing while worrying about your financial future and your purpose. Being paid well for something you like to do is something unobtainable for most people. It is fairly rare even in the most developed of societies. I wonder how many people wish they could have two weeks off from watching their kids starve to death.

6/30/2009 10:08 PM EDT

Any time off is good time! I do love what I do though.

Consultants do not get any time off. Actually, any small business owner knows of this too.

7/1/2009 12:38 PM EDT

Vacation time in the western world is the biggest employer of casual labor. It is good for the economy in Europe every 6 weeks there is a wave of vacationers from May to September. Usually for a minimum of 1 month vacation in most EU countries.

7/1/2009 3:14 PM EDT

To be fair, the average skilled worker gets 3 weeks starting out. Many companies roll sick leave time into general 'Paid Time Off' adding up to 3-4 weeks in total. For those, particularly younger workers, who maybe take 2-3 days a year off as sick-leave this works in our favor.

My issue on this subject is more a question of WHEN I can take my vacation. It's hard to schedule more than a week off, when you are at the mercy of your customer's schedule and the team needs you. And I find it difficult to make plans in advance because schedules can and do change.

'Time off without pay' sounds like a great idea, is generally frowned upon. Companies would rather you be earning money for them (which is why they hired you). Except for unusual circumstances, I was discouraged from using this option. Another problem is, if you take too much time off without pay, you may lose certain benefits because you may no longer be considered a full-time employee.

When I go on vacation, I do not have a cell-phone or laptop.

7/2/2009 2:33 AM EDT

Jack is right on the money - American engineers are indentured servants. Our politicians, federal, state, and city employees as
well as some unions enjoy the same time off as Europeans, some 6 weeks total including holidays. European companies like Philips,
Siemens, Ericsson and Nokia make some very good stuff so I don't buy the 2 months lost productivity arguments. I think their engineers
accomplish as much in a shorter amount of time because they gave their body and soul a 4 week holiday on the Med.

7/2/2009 3:20 AM EDT

Being European, I can also agree that a three week vacation really helps stress down and take it easy.

The effect on overall productivity is not obviously negative. It seems to me that working hours have no real relationship to production in most cases. In a creative job, more than 8-9 hours of work per day only seems to produce the same things in more time (on average, over time, for most people, I know there are always exceptions).

So for a creative job, I think over time the best productivity is maintained by letting people have time off, not feeling threatened if they have to drop out of work for half a day to fix the car or take care of sick kids and similar. Also, take you six months of parental leave when you have kids! It works very well when everyone expects it, no big deal.

An interesting data point, though, is the GNP vs working hours statistics. I saw some information a few years ago saying that the difference between the US and the EU in terms of GNP per capita pretty much corresponded to the average working hours per person. The US does work more hours per person and year on average, significantly so. But the reason for that is not necessarily vacation times... it might rather be early retirement and high unemployment, or late entry of people to the work force -- there are many more variables at play.

7/2/2009 7:49 AM EDT

I work in Italy, and I'm quite proud of holiday policy here, because it gives you freedom to do extra activity in life.

Reporting my experience, I'm going to Congo (DR) for a 4 week in a mission, to help someway, I hope. Of course, 4 weeks are really few, but is still something! That would have been not possible in the US.

Holiday has not to be considered only as "non-working" period, rather a prolific period for other aspects of life and society, through holidays people moove, meet, have interesting experience and grow. Of course, this is less prolific for enterprise, but more for government, I guess.

Of course, we have a trade-off: work here is generally less interesting than in USA, many people are not working on cutting-edge tech, and corporates spend money and resources to handle employees issues (holidays, children, bad workers they can't fire, etc....).

I've always thought that USA and EUROPE are almost 2 complementary choices, in most of the cases...

7/2/2009 7:52 AM EDT

Being from Europe and have for the last 13 years lived and worked in the US, I have seen both sides of the coin. In Sweden where I am from there are 5-6 weeks of vacation per year, but in most places 3-4 weeks are controlled by the company, when taken. The company literally shuts down for that period of time. In some professions this is not possible, but for the most part it is. The good part about this is that the company doesn't slow down to a crawl due to that some people are on vacation and others are not. The crawl period is much longer than the 3-4 weeks of being shut down, so productivity really gets hurt. the rest of the vacation time you normally can take at your discretion.

Here in the US normally you get between 2-3 weeks of vacation per year and most employees frown upon you taking more than a week in a stretch. Also, the overlapping of vacations and the company not being at full strength during most of the summer do hurt.

I agree with that 2-3 weeks is too lean on vacation time. Rested and relaxed employees are much more productive than stressed out ones. It also means less turn over and better quality of work.

7/2/2009 9:54 AM EDT

The company I work for has instituted a alternate work schedule. The schedule provides a Friday off every two weeks in exchange for 9 hour days for 8 days and a 8 hour day. The Friday off is not vacation, but it does help out with family events, errands and the like. We shutdown during the Christmas - New Year holiday. Unfortunately, some of the days off burn one's own vaction time. All in all, I wish we had at least an additional week of vaction which one could use as one sees fit.

7/2/2009 11:31 AM EDT

You hit the nail right on the head. Now our sick time is part of our vacation time, and we are on salary and still expected to work overtime, weekends, etc.

7/2/2009 12:15 PM EDT

I worked in Europe and North America,

In Europe, when someone takes several weeks in a row, someone else has to take over the position. Therefore, people
have to share theirs works. It means explaining the work flow or leaving some written instructions. This is an unofficial
process that increases the productivity (and potentially challenge the work flow). It also means that most people can be replaced.

In North America, employees are pretty much always in the workplace. Therefore, they do not need to share. Some even hide what they are doing. It makes them irreplaceable not because they are good but because nobody can take over!

So dear CEO, think about productivity rather than appearance of efficiency.

7/2/2009 9:43 PM EDT

My employer gives four weeks of PTO after one year, five weeks after five years and six weeks after 10. Next year is my 10th. That's one of the reasons I don't seriously look elsewhere even when they institute another one of their silly management policies.

By the way, we are a US division of a French conglomerate. Some of the people that come over here think we are paid too much but that we don't get enough vacation.

7/3/2009 3:25 AM EDT

To jmdavid1789: that's a good point!

7/3/2009 11:01 PM EDT

I think vacations can be more productive than many people might give them credit for. I love reading on vaca (usually engineering books) and it seems like the things I read on vaca get burned into my memory. I'll also get some creative ideas in the relaxed vaca environment that will get me excited about eventually returning to work. Sometimes it's good to take a step back from things and let the creative juices flow.

7/6/2009 12:47 PM EDT

Typically when one switches companies, vacation time is reset back to 2 weeks unless you can negotiate an exception here in the US.

Since the average time a person is employed by a company in the US is 2.1 years, most people never get more than the 2 weeks.

Even though I am passionate in what I do, the time off is really needed to recharge.

I am looking forward to doing my own thing, consulting, if and when the economy turns so I can take and get freed up more from the regimented daily grind.

7/13/2009 11:30 AM EDT

I've been at one US company for 20 years, and I have six weeks of paid time off (sick+vacation) per year. Vacations of more than two weeks are really frowned on. Even so, everyone is expected to at least check emails once a day, and executives have to carry cell phones, while on vacation. Also, you cannot carry over more than 40 hours vacation from one year to the next.

Next month, however, I have all the time off I want, because my job is being outsourced to China.