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posted by
Woods
on Tuesday April 29 2014, @12:45AM
from the I-am-on-vacation-right-now-and-loving-it dept.
from the I-am-on-vacation-right-now-and-loving-it dept.
According to Glassdoor's Q1 2014 Employment Confidence Survey, the average U.S. employee (of those who receive vacation/paid time off) only takes half (51%) of his or her eligible vacation time/paid time off. In addition, when employees do take paid time off, three in five (61%) admit doing some work. Each quarter, the Glassdoor Employment Confidence Survey monitors four key indicators of employment confidence: salary expectations, job security, the job market and company outlook. This quarter's survey also took a look at employee vacation time, including the percentage of eligible vacation time/paid time off employees actually take, how much they work and why while on vacation, among other realities.
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Average U.S. Employee Takes Half Earned Vacation
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Remember Darwin; building a better mousetrap merely results in smarter mice.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday April 29 2014, @04:15AM
Many places have cut staff so far back that there are not so subtle penalties for employees that take their time off, law or not.
Instead of there being someone to cover for an employee taking off, the work just piles up and when the employee returns they have to work twice as hard to catch up, negating any rest gained by a vacation.
Bosses might frown upon those who take time off at the the "wrong" time and punish the employee in other ways.
In several places I have worked, certain times were off limits for taking vacations even if they are prime vacation times, leaving you with a choice of less desirable times.
The problem is the entire cultural attitude towards vacations in the US. It is considered a paid reward graciously handed out by an employer instead of what it really should be, something that benefits both employees and employers by creating happier, more productive workers.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday April 29 2014, @05:08AM
something that benefits both employees and employers by creating happier, more productive workers.
Except it doesn't always do that. Maybe for simple "process" jobs, factory jobs, etc.
But for software development, scientific projects, creative endeavors, architects, etc being forced to take two weeks, might cost the project 4 weeks, because it often takes that long to bet back "into it" to the point you are productive again. If the project moves along in your absence, you have to catch up, or undo the nonsense that they sneaked in while you were in Maui. But chances are, if you are lead, they sat on their asses waiting for you to return. Some production.
Often, everybody will be more productive when key people wait till they are at a transition point, and that might not happen on a convenient year boundary.
Use it or Lose it hurts employers, projects, and employees. Accrual forever can represent a financial liability to the employer, and an incentive to leave.
A happy medium exists in many companies, which allows accrual but not forever, two years is a common boundary.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday April 29 2014, @11:47AM
One problem with that you described a piecework repetitive job situation as being creative. As though digging coal is creative because each time you swing a pick you never know quite what you'll find.
Actual creative work usually accelerates after a vacation. Subconscious evaluation, new directions, new ideas.
What you described is "we call IT devs "creative" for the irony, and assign CRUD website of the month #1351 which takes exactly 4 weeks of LABOR (not creativity, often none of that at all), and assign another every 4 weeks, so taking a week off naturally means being a week late.
There are also natural rhythms in non-sweatshop environments. Everyone's either on vacation or retired in place or basically phoning it in from thanksgiving till new years, and everyone knows it, so that's when:
1) A lot of vacation gets burned, especially when the kids are out of school
2) A lot of blue sky research project experiment stuff is done, along with vaguely speculative infrastructure work/experiments.
3) Any final catch up to make the annual review look good gets done. Hopefully just individual busywork and checkboxing that doesn't require external cooperation.
Similar rhythms exist in accounting / tax work, where you'll work 80 hour weeks right before quarterlies and annuals and audits, but the week after you might literally have nothing to do, so aside from nerf gun fights at work, lots of vacation gets burned.
Then there are things like freezes due to external-ish events. If all I do is change things, eventually I've spooled up so many changes on -dev that I can't do anything until I see how it runs in production, so I may as well take time off during a freeze.
(Score: 1) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday May 06 2014, @02:59AM
While I agree with your idea in theory, the problem is that there is always something happening that needs to be worked on. If you are truly a conscientious worker, in the U.S. you are almost always going to feel guilty about taking a vacation. Unless of course, you take a deep breath and realize that it is quite likely that the world is not going to end while you are away and if the company is managed properly (yeah, I know...) things will be O.K. without you for a week or so.