Give Them a Break

Your employees work hard. They deserve time off.

Your employees also probably have a contract with you, which says you have to give them time off.

Your employees will likely burn out if they never take a break, so for crying out loud, give them some time off!

As a boss facing deadlines it is easy to think that you cannot afford to let your employees take their vacation. Clients have expectations, things often run behind schedule, and you need people to get work done and make money for your firm or no one will have a job anyway. When people come to you about vacation plans it is easy to say “no,” but in the end you are hurting yourself, not just them.

Some companies have policies covering certain times of the year — consider the “we discourage vacation in the fourth quarter” policy that some firms have, because they need to make up for all the sales they did not get in the first 3 quarters. Other places try to make employees feel guilty whenever they ask for time off, hoping they will just keep quiet. In many multinational corporations, the folks at headquarters do not recognize the importance of time off during holidays in other countries — the MNC that schedules its CEO to come to Singapore for the annual “kickoff” meeting during Chinese New Year is a case in point (and that is not hypothetical — I have seen that exact scenario). Sometimes it is an individual leader, rather than a company policy, that tries to limit the time off that people take. None of these are good.

When you hired your employees you included certain benefits in the deal, including vacation, and if they feel you are going back on that promise then you have given them a big incentive to look elsewhere (and in Asia today, even with some slowing down of large economies, talented employees will always have options…and the talented ones are the ones you want to keep). Even if they do not leave, they will be (justifiably) resentful, and most likely you will not be getting their best efforts anymore. Plus, they may lose their creative “edge” if they are working continuously without a break, and you really do not benefit from burning out your employees.

So how do you get all your work done? Well, there are two answers here, and both involve planning. The first is, make sure you have enough people. If you are not able to get everything done with everyone taking the vacation time you promised them, then maybe you simply do not have enough folks working for you. When you evaluate your manpower requirements be sure to account for the vacation time they’re allowed to take, so you know how many people you really need. My first military assignment involved shift work, with 24/7 coverage, so when the squadron’s manpower requirements were created, they were designed with things like vacation, sick leave, and training in mind.

A second answer to your problem is effective scheduling, and really, just increased efficiency overall. If your people are spending too much time in meetings, or if they seem to be dragging out projects longer than they should realistically be taking, or if they are spending lots of time traveling to the client site instead of working, then maybe you can find better ways to use their time. Cutting back on their vacation, though, should not be an option just because it seems easier.

The worst problems arise when bosses say “no, you cannot take your vacation,” but then take their own time off (and yes, I recently saw this happen at a company during Christmas). In what universe can this possibly be considered a good idea? If you deny other people something that you are taking advantage of yourself, then you should not be surprised if your employees find some way to make your life miserable, too. And in my humble opinion, they are probably right to do so.