Time squeeze - employee vacation

HR Magazine, August, 2003 by Jennifer Schramm

Are you taking a vacation this year--to go to a beach, perhaps, do some traveling? Or will you scale back your time off and mostly stay on the job?

If you are like many U.S. employees, you could be voluntarily reducing your vacation time. Workers are taking 10 percent less vacation leave this year than they took year earlier, according to poll from online travel service Expedia.com, and one in five employees feels guilty taking time off.

It is difficult to imagine employees passing up any other benefits, and it can be hard to see what makes paid time off so different. The frequently voiced argument that Americans are for some reason culturally averse to taking time for vacation--compared with workers in other countries--does not hold up. After all, summer vacations for U.S. schoolchildren are among the longest the world.

A more likely explanation is that all other industrialized countries have minimum paid-leave laws. Thus, because vacation in other countries is legislated, it essentially has been removed as a fact in the employment relationship, and it is influenced by political rather than employment trends. In the United States, however, vacation, like other benefits, is negotiated between employer and employee. Although there are some advocates of a minimum-paid-leave law in the United States, it is highly unlikely to happen anytime in the foreseeable future.

Therefore, vacation time for U.S. workers will continue to decrease--or will increase--in line with broader economic developments and, in some instances, with trends in society. In the short term, then, the trend toward a less vacation appears likely to remain the rule. With the economy struggling and people worried about their jobs, demonstrating a commitment to work translates into working longer hours and taking less leave. Moreover, employees at companies the have recently reduced staff may now have heavier work loads and thus feel they can't take more than a few days off

Over the long term, however, demand for paid leave is likely to increase as U.S. employees strive for improved work/life balance. The younger workers who will be replacing those now approaching retirement will be more apt than their predecessors to place great value on paid time off as an employee benefit.

Employers may find it difficult to comply with such employee demands at a time when other fixed costs per employee continue to increase. But as the U.S. economy continues to shift knowledge-based industries from manufacturing, it may prove less costly than imagined--in terms of productivity--to increase employee's vacation time.

Employers and employees alike may find that an individual can be equally productive while working fewer hours if productivity based on creativity, energy and ideas. This could shift the emphasis to improving productivity per hours worked rather than lengthening working hours overall.

For now, U.S. employees will continue to work while the British, Australian French, Germans, and eve the Japanese and Brazilians are relaxing. Or maybe not. recent survey from business publisher CCH Inc., based in Riverwoods, Ill., showed that employees taking unscheduled sick time to meet personal needs increased by percent in 2002.

Perhaps Americans have decided that, like the rose, vacation by any other name really does smell as sweet.

For more information on emerging issues, visit www.shrm.org/trends.

JENNIFER SCHRAMM IS MANAGER OF THE WORKPLACE TREND AND FORECASTING PROGRAM AT SHRM.