The Value of Vacation

For anything in life to work successfully, there needs to be balance; everything has it’s yin and yang. In regards to running a successful organization, there are many different balances to consider, but few as important as the balance between work and vacation for the working members of the organization. The average Canadian worker spends the vast majority of their year committed to their professional responsibilities and only a few weeks (if that) on vacation, able to recharge their batteries and spend their time as they please. Though we often focus heavily on the kind of work that employees do while they’re on the clock, ensuring employees can take an adequate amount of vacation time is crucial in ensuring any organization’s overall success.

When employees take vacation time, they’re giving themselves the chance to tune out their professional responsibilities for a short period and focus exclusively on themselves. Taking this time allows people to rest and refresh, and prevents employee burnout throughout the rest of the year. Beyond that, vacations are often some of the most important and cherished times in peoples’ lives. If you think about your own life, your memories of the vacations you’ve been on are probably some of your favourite! Taking a vacation is a great way for people to reward themselves for the hard work they do on a daily basis, enrich their lives by seeing other parts of the world and create some amazing memories with family and friends.

It’s important to note that along with all the other sweeping changes brought upon by COVID-19, the onset of the pandemic has thrown a wrench into millions of Canadians’ vacation plans. While not everyone takes a trip when they take their vacation time, a massive number of people aim to save up their vacation days to take a week or two at a time and get out of town instead of taking a day or two sporadically. Pre-pandemic, Canadians were avid travellers and spent billions on travel each year; according to Stats Canada, Canadian residents spent over $83.8 billion on trips (both international and domestic) in 2018. Back in March, many Canadians saw any upcoming travel plans they had for 2020 and beyond fall apart within a few days. While fortunately many people were able to recoup their losses financially from airlines, hotels and so on, this left countless employees with the option of still taking their vacation time and staying home, or trying to hold off on taking too much time in anticipation of the possible return of safe international travel of 2021. Both options are tricky; most people don’t want to use their precious little amount of annual vacation time hanging out at home (particularly as we’re all stuck inside our houses more than ever), but they also don’t want to stick it out at work without a break for an unknown length of time. Some people also chose to travel within Canada this summer, but it’s tough to enjoy a trip if you know there’s an increased threat of being exposed to COVID-19 while you’re away from home (domestic travel will likely decrease greatly over the coming months as a result).

Beyond that, all those who work from home have already been experiencing the effects of blurred lines between work and play for months now. If your home is your office, you’re always at the office; shutting down for the night and putting boundaries between personal and professional time is more difficult than ever. Many people are already dealing with an increased level of stress outside of their jobs due to COVID-19, including financial stress, stress about having kids in school and concerns about what the winter is going to bring. With all of that on the table, the decreasing divide between personal and professional life means employee burnout will be a major threat for all organizations over the course of this winter.

According to the Government of Canada, every Canadian is entitled to two weeks of vacation (10 business days) from their job for every year of employment they complete with the same employer. This amount rises to three weeks when employees have been with the same organization for 5 years, and four weeks when they’ve been with the same organization over 10 years. This policy actually puts Canada in the one of the lowest ranks for guaranteed vacation time around the developed world; Canada ranks ahead of only the United States, famously known as “no-vacation-nation” for it’s lack of guaranteeing any worker vacation time at a federal level, and Japan, which also offers 10 days of vacation time but has no statutory paid holidays. In that light, it should be obvious that employers who offer a more generous amount of vacation time can use this is a major advantage when it comes to attracting top talent, rewarding team members for their hard work and keeping remote staff members engaged.

However, it’s important that if your organization makes a pledge to offer more vacation time, the promise is honoured completely. Of course, it’s completely acceptable for an organization to regulate vacation time so that numerous key staff members can’t all take vacation at the same time (ex. ensuring everyone gets their vacation time pre-approved on a first come, first serve basis). But, if an employee takes time off, employers must make a point to ensure that no one contacts them with work questions or concerns during their vacation unless it’s an absolute emergency. Also, it’s important that employees feel they can take a vacation without paying for it when they return. If a person gets to enjoy their vacation uninterrupted only to return to 1000 emails and a bunch of impending deadlines, they won’t feel as comfortable taking time off in the future, and if they do, they won’t be able to truly tune out while they’re away from the office.

Despite the fact that business travel may not resume for a while, it’s worth spending some time thinking about how a team vacation might positively impact your organization as a whole sometime in the future. An article published by Benefits Canada in 2017 shared how a number of Canadian companies annually invest in taking most or all of their staff on an all-expenses paid vacation. Vancouver-based software company iQMetrix offered it’s entire team a week-long vacation to Hawaii, while Montreal-based Groupe GSoft Inc. offered 180 members of their staff a three-day Caribbean cruise. During these trips, team members were allowed some freedom in determining their schedules and were offered the chance to participate in a ton of different activities, but were also required to participate in a number of team building exercises. According to the executives at iQMetrix, the annual trip helps strengthen bonds between team members, encourages people from different departments to get to know each other and gives everyone the opportunity to reflect on what the team wants to collectively accomplish over the next year. Charles Fortin-Larose, an executive at Groupe GSoft, praises the positive impacts created by company vacations, stating “It’s a great way to get everyone on board… They feel like they’re a member of the family. If the company crashes, everyone crashes. If the company wins, everyone wins.”

If covering the costs of an all-expenses paid trip for your entire team sounds like more than your organization can afford, or you’re more interested in getting started now, there are still other ways to encourage your team to take some vacation time and show them you care about their overall wellbeing. First, work on ensuring that the members of your organization are familiar with each others’ work. If everyone is highly specialized in their responsibilities, it makes taking vacation time difficult for everyone; everyone will know they’re going to come home to a mountain of work. A team that can pitch in on each others’ duties, even just a bit, will be able to cover for each other more easily when one employee is off, and will make everyone’s vacation time easier to enjoy. Second, knowing that people are going to want to save up their vacation days for a “real vacation” if they can, offer the members of your team some extra days off outside of what’s included in their employment contract and encourage them to use them as rest days. These are unprecedented times, and just about everyone could use a break to take some time for themselves. Many people don’t feel comfortable asking for extra time off unless they absolutely need it, either because they feel it’ll reflect on them as being lazy, or they internally want to keep that request in the back of their mind just in case they need to ask for something else in the future. Your employees will thank you for recognizing that they may be feeling more stressed than usual, and will be able to make a stronger contribution to your organization’s goals when they feel well-rested.

Another way you can encourage your employees to take their vacation time is to try to incorporate vacations into your benefits program. By offering a match-based saving benefits program and offering your team an extra incentive to earmark their contributions for vacations, you can encourage them to prioritize their own time off. Though vacations are not essential in the same way that food, health care or shelter are, having an adequate amount of time off work each year is extremely important in preserving people’s mental health on a long-term basis. By matching a portion of your employees’ savings towards their next vacation, they may be able to really take advantage of their time off and afford to travel somewhere they wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. Even though your team won’t be able to travel freely for a while with COVID concerns in mind, starting a program like this now means they’ll have a great amount of time to build up their vacation fund so they’re ready when international travel is back on the table. Knowing that their dream vacation was supported by your contribution, your employees will thank you and recognize that you value them for beyond just what they can contribute to your organization during business hours. This will in turn renew their commitment to their professional responsibilities and keep them focused on delivering high-quality results for your business once they’re back at work.

Ultimately, ensuring that your employees are getting enough vacation time is critical is ensuring your organization functions at its highest level. People who actually have time to enjoy the things they love are happier, more fulfilled and less stressed as a result, and this kind of change in mood will follow them into work every day. So, if you’re looking for a way to set your organization apart from your competitors and keep your key staff members engaged, retained and motivated, offering extra vacation time may be the right move for you.

If you’re a Canadian employer interested in adopting an innovative, impactful benefits package to retain your employees, reduce the effects of financial stress in the workplace and set yourself apart from your competitors, match-based saving benefits may be right for your business! QUBER is an industry leader in Canadian match-based savings and can offer employers a customized experience using the QUBER platform to facilitate match-based savings with their employees. If you’re interested in seeing a demo of how QUBER can help strengthen your relationship with your employees, send us an email at contactus@quber.ca or visit our Employers page and send us a message using the contact form found at the bottom of the page.  

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