Americans give vacations back to employers

This is the first part of an article found in our local paper today

More give vacations back to employers

Americans have least time off
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 12/26/06
BY LULADEY B. TADESSE
GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

As the year winds down, many workers will scramble to use up vacation days. But a growing number of Americans — nearly a third — will end up forgoing their vacation days because they have too much work or responsibility to take off.

"With the downsizing and companies being leaner in terms of the staffing, . . . companies are trying to do more with less, and people are busier than ever," said George Faulkner, a health and benefits principal at Mercer Human Resource Consulting. "It is more difficult to take the time off because it affects the work, and employees tend to feel guilty about it."

Americans are expected to give back 574 million vacation days in 2006, worth about $75.72 billion based on workers' average hourly wage, according to Expedia.com's 2006 Vacation Deprivation survey. On average, Americans will give up four vacation days this year, one more than last year.

"Vacation deprivation in America is at an all-time high," said Sally McKenzie, vice president and general manager at Expedia.com.

"There are credible health and wellness benefits associated with time off from work. Americans should take a cue from their foreign counterparts and relish the vacation they earn."

The Expedia.com survey, which included the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, France and Australia, found that Americans have the least amount of vacation — 14 days — and forgo more of it.

Criminal!

I think it is criminal to give back even a single day of earned vacation! People need to take their vacations . . . and employers need to be more generous with the paid time off that they give their employees.

I work hard (and long hours) and I need the time off to recharge. I take four weeks a year, with pay. I'm fortunate in that I've been successful in negotiating accelerated vacation benefits when hired. Many candidates don't know that this is a rather easy way for an employer to compensate and employee during the hiring process. Often employers will be generous at the time of hire.

Yvonne

As a Principal with Cap Gemini/Ernst & Young, "she who must be obeyed" got 3 weeks vacation while the same position in Europe came with 8 weeks.

Despite their lack of "working", Cap Gemini was a French company that made enough money to buy out Ernst & Young's consulting practice, a US company.

Hum, maybe its just greedy capitalism after all? And making the American worker feel guilty about taking time off? We've all had bosses like that. They were the ones who died of heart attacks at age 60.

Ten years ago we gave that all up for our own tiny computer consulting company. Haven't missed working for the evil corporations a single day, now we just take their money and usually schedule plenty of time off between projects. It's human nature to need a recharge physically and psychologically. Otherwise you just get burned out, doesn't help the corporation any when you do.

Vacation Planning.

Back in the days when I had to work for a living, I got sent to a mandatory U.S. Government Time Management training course put on by a private-sector instructor under civil service contract. The teacher was pretty sharp. He said, "OK, each fall after you go out & buy your new blank pocket calendar or blank desk calendar for the next year, what is the very 1st thing you schedule for the upcoming year by writing it in your new calendar?"

People said things like budget formulation, budget submission, budget review, staffing review, job performance standards review, job performance review, stragetic plan update, annual security evaluation, management action plan, & I don't know what-all.

The guy said, "No. Those things are all important & need to go on your calendar. But the very 1st thing you should put in your new calandar every year is your vacation."

"Think about it," he said. "Those other things, important as they are, will come round whether you put them in your calendar or not. But your vacation will not happen unless you plan for it & make it happen. If you wait for the dust to settle & the agenda to clear before you go on vacation, you will not go on vacation. If you wait for a good time to go on vacation, you will not go on vacation. If you want to enjoy some time off & take your family on a nice vacation that's compatible with your work schedule, your spouse's work schedule, & the kids' school schedules, then you better get that in your calendar before anything else, or it is not going to happen."

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

Only when I was "young and foolish" and thought it might help me climb the corporate ladder ***WRONG***. Now I take all 5 weeks + 4 days I am due, without exception. Timesharing has helped me a lot in that area as it forces us to plan ahead rather than just saying we'll take a week "pretty soon". In fact, most employees could do it too, because if employers know well in advance that you are going to be gone a specific week, things will just naturally start working around it. Right now, I am already looking forward to our first week of 2007, leaving on January 1 !!

Somehow I doubt that you will find many people on THIS website giving vacation time back to their employer. That would go against our basic instinct. I "manage" both my husband's and my time on a spreadsheet. I earn time twice a month and can take time off in as small as 6 minute increments. So in my case it is like keeping a checkbook balance. I have a little less than 3 years till retirement so am aiming at using my vacation time carefully to not loose any time at the end of the year, yet at the same time have the maximum on the books the day I retire so I can get that nice bonus check at the end. What a fun project.

I get 6.5 weeks a year and use every bit of it. And rarely use it to "work around the house" as a lot of others say. We are always going somewhere and all of the people at work can't figure out how we can be gone 6-7 weeks a year on vacations to the Caribbean, NYC, and FL. Just jealous I guess. They know we have TS, but except for one, I just can't seem to get anyone else interested in learning how we do it. Oh well..... their loss.

Not only do I take my 5 weeks vacation & 7 personal days a year, I call in sick a few times. (sometimes I go to a ball game, sometimes I just stay home)

Nobody lays on their death bed and says, "I wish I spent more time at the office."

As has been said earlier, I doubt you'll find a lot of posters on this forum that give back vacation days to their employer. I know I don't.

However, I also know a lot of people that DO give back time. One sells all most of his time back prefering to put the money into retirement savings or college funds for his children. Others just don't plan ahead or think it's important. Some call in sick far to often, essentially taking their vacation one day at a time as a "mental health day."

We take off approx. 5 weeks per year or one week out of 10. Since we've been doing this, I have noticed some of my fellow employee's begining to take time off for themselves. They ask me how I can take that much time off and my responce has always been, "the same way YOU can take that much time off. It's just that I DO IT and you waste it." I take my vacation days rather than give them back. You just have to say your going to do it and then GO.

Now on the other hand, I still work a lot of overtime. I have to in order to pay for all those vacations.

My DH gets 6 weeks per year, and I force him to take them. He works hard and has long hours: I feel he deserves it. On the other hand I get 2 weeks and take 6 OK 4 w/o pay, but who cares. I heard that you can't spend money no matter if you go up or down, so what's the purpose of working yourself to the grave?

One of my sons works at the US naval Observatory in DC and I'm not sure if his boss is NASA or the navy but he just got his statement of his use it or lose it vacation time. He has more time than he has days to use it so he is donating the extra time to a fellow employee who is undergoing treatment for cancer and has no more vacation time. I guess otherwise it would have gone back to his employer.

What a wonderful thing to do; if only all employers would allow time donation. I'm sure the extra days of pay will certainly be appreciated.

Joy

Why I Never Donated Any Use-Or-Lose Leave To Anybody.

joycapecod said:

What a wonderful thing to do; if only all employers would allow time donation. I'm sure the extra days of pay will certainly be appreciated.

Joy

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Agreed. But it would also be a wonderful thing if all the recipients of donated sick leave & donated vacation leave were on the level & were appropriately appreciative.

One joker who worked* for me got in some serious medical trouble, had major surgery (largely paid for by FEHB), used up all his sick leave, used up all his annual leave, borrowed ahead on his own annual leave & sick leave, accepted a big chunk of excess leave donated by coworkers, & retired before he could pay back the advance leave he borrowed.

Rather than expressing any gratitude that he survived a life-threatening condition & received a valuable donation of leave from fellow workers, he griped & groused & complained & moaned & groaned & wrote to his congressman over the fact that the civil service retirement folks deducted from his retirement annuity payments an amount equivalent to the value of the borrowed-ahead leave that he never paid back.

* He didn't actually work for me, or do any actual useful work at all so far as I could tell, but he was on the payroll & collected a check from the taxpayers every 2 weeks -- another example of your tax dollars at work. I didn't hire the guy. He was already on staff with a division that got added to my operation back during my empire building days. If he hadn't got sick & then retired & then died, I would have had to initiate what we bureaucrats call adverse action.
So it goes.​

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

I get 20 vacation days and 6 PTO days. I can use them for sick, vacation or whatever. I usually end the year with 5-10 days left which I can carry over. I also get 10 Family Care days per year. I've never used more than 2 of those in a calendar year. In 2007 I will use all of my Family Care days by the end of July. Much of my vacation time is spoken for also.

Hourly employees can "sell" unused PTO back to the company at the end of the year. I'm salaried so I cannot. That's a good thing because I might be tempted to take the extra money.

People always ask me just how much vacation time I get because I'm always traveling. However, many of my trips take advantage of Holidays and weekends.

I receive 4 weeks of vacation, one floating holiday, and 2 weeks of personal leave. Anything not used, with the exception of the floating holiday, is bought back. I usually have something left to sell back, because I have to keep something just in case I actually have to use my personal time for sick leave Usually I have somewhere between at least 1-5 days. I am able to take 1/2 days and I will take them on Fridays which makes me feel like I have had a long weekend and that provides refreshment when I just need a break.

But we travel for 3 weeks EOY to Hawaii. Even with timeshares it can be expensive. So in the years we don't plan a trip there I might hold back on using my time to turn the hours back in to help fund that vacation. So even though I am on vacation now I will still have 67 hours left. The 'extra' pay will go straight into the vacation fund., and pay for 1/2 the costs. Do I miss taking all the time off? Yes. But a prefunded 3 week vacation on the islands will more than makes up for time not taken this year.

There is no giving time back. The exception being the last few years I have sold back the week that I purchase every year, but that is due to the fact that I travel so much for work on the weekends thru out the year that I have a bunch of comp days. We get 3 wks vacation, 4 flex days in the summer and 6 holiday PTO days and I use every bit of my time. We can't carry over vacation days. they stopped that because people wouldn't take their time off.

So many have said exactly how I feel: I have earned that time and should therefore not feel guilty about using it! I get 28 days per year to "spend" any way I like or need (vac, sick, etc.) and can carry over 5 days to the next year. I try to plan 4 weeks of vacation, use up 1 week in 1's or 2's (long weekends & such) and carry over the rest. These 5 days also act as an emergency reserve for sickness or urgent matters. I also work from home occasionally which can really come in handy when needing to meet contractors, etc. at the house.

I have relatives in Europe who always laugh when they read these types of reports about Americans not taking vacations.

I also think that most bosses / employers don't notice or care much about vac givebacks. I encourage my direct reports to schedule their time off like they do their projects or other work. Timeshare has certainly forced the planning for us since 1993 (our 1st one bought).

It came as a real shock to me when I discovered how little annual leave (vacation) many people get in the US. In the UK there is a statutory minimum of 4 weeks per year plus Bank Holidays (similar to Labour Day and Thanksgiving). In my last job I received 6 weeks paid leave plus the 8 Bank Holidays. I was also entitled to 6 months on full pay followed by 6 months on half pay if seriously ill. I was off work for 6 week periods twice following major knee surgery. The company also had a system in place where staff could buy holiday to a maximum total of 30 days or sell days to retain a minimum of 25 days total. Staff could also carry forward a maximum of 5 days, although that time had to be used in the first 3 months of the following year.
I would certainly never consider selling or giving holiday back to the company. The holiday entitlement was based in part on job grade - the greater the responsibility of the role the higher the number of days holiday. That suggests that the company recognises the need to escape the work environment to recharge batteries.

While the article is interesting, a piece of information is missing. The IRS gives tax advantages for companies that apply for it if their employees give back unused sick or vacation time for the benefit of Katrina victims. There is additional info on the IRS web site. Some folks just can't use all the time...we are in that boat. The end of the year suddenly appears, and all of the work demands have been met...and vacation and sick time is left over. It's certainly not a pleasant thought....but, alas, it does happen.

BubbaQ is one of those who lets is vacation time stack up then scrambles at the end of the year to use it all. I'm the complete opposite. I'm trying to break him of the habit. he's a workaholic in the making, but OTOH, he does truly love what he does. I do too, but I love traveling more. He's actually going to lose a couple days this year, while I am sitting here trying to plan out next years vacation times.

I once worked for a man who bragged that he hadn't taken a vacation in 7 years. We worked for a use it or lose it company. I just didn't understand him at all.

IMHO, the main reason people end up not using all of their vacation time is because they don't plan to use it throughout the year. Then, as the end of the year approaches, they find that there are not enough days available to them due to work requirements, fellow employees taking time off, etc. Sure, everyone wants to be off during the holidays, but personally, I'd rather do it throughout the year. Thus, with all my time used up for 2006, I'm at work today. Sell vacation time back? Never ! (even if our company allowed it).

I also try to set a good example and encourage those in my department to schedule at least some of their time earlier in the year. For example, my first week of 2007 will begin January 2 with a timeshare ski week in New England!

BSQ said:

I once worked for a man who bragged that he hadn't taken a vacation in 7 years.

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One of the first protections against employee theft and dishonesty is requiring employees to take a minimum of 1 week continuous time off. Not that all problems would be found, but if an employee (or officer) won't take time off it sends up a red flag that they might be trying to hide something, and someone should audit what they are doing. (This may not be the case here, and has nothing to do with the topic, but is just a little bit of info for any managers out there.)

I have never given a day back and I never will. My vacation is basically the reason I work!!

jlr10 said:

One of the first protections against employee theft and dishonesty is requiring employees to take a minimum of 1 week continuous time off. Not that all problems would be found, but if an employee (or officer) won't take time off it sends up a red flag that they might be trying to hide something, and someone should audit what they are doing. (This may not be the case here, and has nothing to do with the topic, but is just a little bit of info for any managers out there.)

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was not the case at all... just a bit weird IMHO of course. :rofl: I likened it to people who come to work when they are sick ... thinking that no one else could possibly do their job.

americans giving back annual leave

ysr_racer said:

Not only do I take my 5 weeks vacation & 7 personal days a year, I call in sick a few times. (sometimes I go to a ball game, sometimes I just stay home)

Nobody lays on their death bed and says, "I wish I spent more time at the office."

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I work for the Post Office, delivering mail on a hilly, walking route in Northeast Ohio. We are so understaffed we are forced to work 50-60 hours per week, so I take all my 5 weeks vacation time each year. However, I, and most others in my office, do not call in sick very often. The rest of the employees have to cover for the person off sick, so sick leave in our office is used very judiciously. Besides, our sick leave is so generous, I feel compelled to use it only when absolutely necessary. Who knows when a tragic illness or off the job accident may occur, causing my 1200 hours of sick leave to be used up? But vacation time?: I use every hour of it, despite the fact we can carry over 11 weeks from previous years.

Opposite side of the spectrum

I have a hard time getting my employees to take time off!!! I’m very lax about the extra time off to pick the kids up from school if they are sick or Dr. / Dentist visits leaving early if their work is done on Friday etc running quick errands etc. I never count this against vacation or sick time. We give one vacation day and ½ a sick day a month. Short of firing them so they will take time off what can I do? I’ve even offered them the use of our Timeshares but they won’t take me up on the offer.