Taking a vacation from work may soon turn into mandatory

With burnout prevalent within the workplace, some employers are considering mandatory vacation, full office shutdowns and other ways to get workaholic employees to take a break.

Only a small variety of employers today — 8.7% — require staff to take a minimum amount of vacation, and a few of that is for legal or regulatory reasons, in response to a 2024 report by the International Foundation of Worker Profit Plans. Even so, determining how you can get employees to take day without work is increasingly on employers’ minds, said Julie Stich, vice chairman of content on the International Foundation of Worker Profit Plans. 

And for good reason. A recent Harris Poll survey found that 78% of Americans don’t use the utmost amount of paid day without work allowed by their employer. The common employee took 15 paid days off last 12 months, despite nearly half being allowed greater than that by their employer, the poll found. 

Yet burnout rates are high. Forty-five percent of American employees claim to feel burnout at work, in response to a 2023 survey by Eagle Hill Consulting. That is even higher amongst 18 to 32 year-old staff (52%) and girls (48%).

“There’s more discussion about mandatory day without work than there was prior to now. There are loads of instances when corporations are reporting employees aren’t taking day without work,” Stich said. 

Here’s what corporations and employees grappling with these issues have to take into consideration.

Tracking vacation usage and worker mindset

A very important first step is to know the corporate’s baseline, said Wende Smith, head of individuals operations at BambooHR. This will help corporations pinpoint a plan for moving forward. Is the issue only in a selected department or is it more broad-based?

“In case you’re not tracking it, you will not understand what your problem is, or if you may have an issue,” Smith said. 

Before enacting broad policy changes, it is vital to deal with the underlying issues that could be stopping employees from taking day without work to recharge.

This might include heavy workload, lack of adequate staffing and the necessity to coordinate day without work with other staff members, in response to the International Foundation of Worker Profit Plans’ survey.

If employers are really serious about getting employers to take day without work, they should check with employees, discover their reasons they are not taking vacation, and address them, Smith said. Leaders also should be role model for his or her direct reports by way of vacation-taking, she said.

And, when employees do take vacation, respect their day without work, Stich said. “Don’t continually message them while they’re on vacation.”

Mandatory paid leave pros and cons

Jobs comparable to pilots, air traffic controllers, trucking and certain finance roles could have mandatory day without work by law or by industry best practice, Stich said. But other industries could have more flexibility with regards to setting these policies. Mandatory policies may be useful because they force the difficulty of vacation, but there may be challenges as well, comparable to worker pushback and enforcement, said Jonathan Gove, senior executive advisor at Eagle Hill Consulting.

“There could be some individuals who see that vacation time as a little bit of a savings account, especially in the event that they receives a commission out at termination,” said Kate Derby, West region practice lead for the absence, disability management and life specialty practice at WTW.

Moreover, mandatory time-off policies may be complicated to manage. If an employer goes to place this into place, they must define what number of days should be taken off, Stich said. Is it one break day a month, in the future per quarter, or five days off in a row? Use of blackout periods also should be weighed for a business to operate properly — as an illustration, during tax season for accountants, or three weeks before school at a pediatric office when back-to-school checkup season requires an all-hands-on-deck approach.

To avoid scheduling headaches, corporations might insist employees tell their manager what week they plan to take off by a certain date, and in the event that they don’t, the manager must work with the worker to find out the day without work, Stich said.

Corporations also must be prepared to manage, in a way that is fair, who gets to take the prime weeks because otherwise you possibly can run into legal troubles or have difficulty with disgruntled and disengaged staff, said Mary Will, deputy general counsel and partner at Faegre Drinker. Employers must be prepared to administer complaints that “Joe at all times gets to take the week between Christmas and Latest Yr’s and nobody else can and we do not think that is fair,” she said.

Federal, state and native law

There isn’t a federal law that claims employers need to supply paid time-off, but there are some state and native laws that apply. Different states even have different requirements on paying for unused paid-time off, which may be complicated to deal with with a compulsory vacation policy, said Jill Kahn Marshall, an employment and labor attorney and partner at Reavis Page Jump. Before implementing a recent policy, businesses should check with an attorney to ensure they are not unintentionally running afoul of any state and native laws, she said.

Methods to encourage more day without work from work

As a substitute of specializing in mandatory day without work, some corporations are searching for less administratively burdensome and employee-friendly alternatives. Many high-tech corporations in California, for instance, have adopted shut-downs, which usually happen the week of July 4th or between Christmas and Latest Yr’s, said WTW’s Derby. “Even the tech corporations which have unlimited PTO are doing shut-downs. It’s the possibility to catch-up and catch your breath because everybody is taking the identical week off,” Derby said. 

More corporations are also scrapping their unlimited time-off policies, which have not at all times worked out as anticipated. In some cases, employees have abused the policy, but often, they take way less vacation than they did after they had a set variety of days. Consequently, some employers have gone back or are considering returning to policies where employees only accrue a certain variety of days — often two to a few weeks per 12 months, Will said.

Sander VanderWerf, senior vice chairman of Aon’s time away and life solutions practice, says some employers will probably want to consider a vacation plan that requires staff to make use of it or lose the times. “Employees usually tend to use more time when the time doesn’t carry over at year-end,” she wrote in an email.