How Much Vacation Do Your Employees Need to Be More Productive?

By Stuart Hearn

While remote and flexible working hours have revolutionised the workplace, when it comes to staff vacations, we’ve not come quite so far. In the U.S., there is no minimum annual leave and whether staff gets paid time off is at the employer’s discretion. In the UK, employers must abide by the 28 day minimum of paid annual leave, which includes public holidays.

Yet despite this, both Virgin Media and Netflix employees can have unlimited time off whenever they like. But just how much time do employees really need to recharge in order to improve workplace productivity? Should we scrap draconian vacation policies for a non-policy approach, or is this just a fad?

Running Out of Juice

It’s no secret that those of us who get more (or at least better) sleep are more productive, and those of us who don’t get enough end up burning ourselves out over time. Dr. Clifford Saper, of Harvard University, says that "the brain of the sleep-deprived individual is working normally sometimes, but intermittently suffers from something akin to power failure."

The same goes for those employees who don’t take time off of work to recharge and replenish. "It is important for employees to take the time off they are entitled to. Everybody needs a break to relax and unwind," says Simon Briault of the Federation of Small Businesses. "In the long run, it will be beneficial for the employee and the employer alike because it helps to reduce ill-health and absenteeism."

Why Aren’t Employees Taking Time Off?

The benefits of taking vacation time are clear, yet many employees are still choosing not to take time off. The reasons relate to increasingly heavy workloads, tighter deadlines, and threatened job security. All of these factors pile on the pressure for employees who value their jobs and want to impress their employers.

While Virgin Media's and Netflix’s new non-policies for vacation time looks like a good deal, it has been criticised for creating a culture of guilt that keeps employees in the workplace instead of encouraging holiday time. Richard Branson’s policy, for instance, stipulates that employees can only take time off “when they feel a 100 percent comfortable that they and their team are up to date on every project, and that their absence will not in any way damage the business.”

How Much Is Right?

Irrelevant of whether companies employ the minimum legal regulations for time off, incentive-based vacation time, or unlimited days off, the question of how much time off actually improves productivity at work remains difficult to answer.

A study conducted by Ernst & Young in 2006 found that the more vacation time, the stronger employee performance. To put a figure on it, for every 10 hours of vacation employees took, there was an 8 percent boost in their performance review scores. On top of that, the employees who actually took their vacation time were more likely to stay on longer at the company. One company reported that their unlimited time off policy actually resulted in a 200 percent increase in growth over a one-year period.

Work/life balance is a buzz phrase which everyone is throwing around at the moment, but as with all things balance is key. Employees need time off to make sure they’re happier, healthier, and more productive, but many employees are concerned about judgmental employers who might think them as less productive and disloyal if they do go on vacation.

If companies truly want the best from their employees, they should be practically pushing them out of the door at least some of the time to make sure they have time to recharge.