August 17, 2010

One of my favorite lines at the office used to be, “great day–take the rest of it off.” I used to tease people with that and say it at 6 o'clock.  I’d also say it to people in the morning occasionally and blow them away.

Try it. Tell people to go home and relax once in a while. 

We all know that as entrepreneurs we duck out of the office for our little stress breaks. Let your team take some once in a while, too.  They’ll thank you for it verbally and with their effort later as well. Let them really recharge their batteries.

And if you really like your employees as much as you say you do, let them take the same amount of vacations as you’d want. Most employees feel that five weeks of paid vacation (including their sick days) in addition to the statutory government holidays is about right.

Let them take it.

If you’re giving employees five weeks vacation:

• They won’t quit. 
• They won’t come into work sick. 
• Recruiting new people will get easier.
• You’ll reduce training time for new employees.
• And we all know the most productive time at the office is the day before vacation. So they’ll actually get more work done. 

Give people more time off.

To be sure they take this time off, force them to or they lose it. The idea is to recharge your batteries regularly and not stockpile the time and have a meltdown. Give them five weeks time off but make them take all five weeks of time during the calendar year.

I like to even teach employees how to take it most effectively:

• Take two weeks during summertime
• Take one week during Christmas

Take the other two weeks (10 days worth) by adding one extra day to each of the three day long weekends we get from statutory government holidays.

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Join the conversation ( 6 )

• Frank Bulk 1 year 9 months and 6 days ago

  

  Somehow they pull off 6+ weeks in Europe, so it must be possible. Part of it is staffing the organization to operate when people are gone, not when all the employees are there.

  • Cameron Herold 10 months ago

    

    Exactly - and I like getting employees to create their own systems to cover for themselves too.

• Julie Rains 1 year 9 months and 6 days ago

  

  Many people will work harder during crunch time if they know that they'll be able to take time off later to pursue interests, visit family, travel, take care of to-do items around the house, etc.

  • Cameron Herold 10 months ago

    

    Exactly - and it's about getting stuff done - not about longer hours.

• CELIA GOODE 1 year 9 months and 6 days ago

  

  Your ideas sound wonderful, but putting them into practice is much more difficult. We are a small organization of 52 employees and our crunch time is summer. When anyone takes off a week during this time it is a hardship on the others. Our time off policy ranges from two weeks to 8 weeks depending on seniority but often employees choose not to take this much off because it creates a burden on their co-workers.

  • Cameron Herold 10 months ago

    

    If more senior staff can find a way to take off 8 weeks, surely they can mentor the junior staff to do the same. Imagine how awesome your company would be then.