Posted by Written by: Florian Wierzchowski
It is used to say that a vacation is such a privilege for an employee, which involves the employee doing nothing for the company during this time, not being at the company’s disposal, and the company unfortunately has to pay the employee for this time. In many places, for many entrepreneurs, vacations are a double affliction – not only do they cost money when the employee does nothing, but they also disorganize the functioning of the company. Important employees leave the company for at least a few days, sometimes weeks.
This perception of vacations I immediately want to assess as very wrong and harmful. Vacations should be seen as something not only normal, but even desirable for the functioning of the company. As you will remember from an earlier blog post, employees are also assets of the company, although not in the accounting sense, that is, despite the fact that they are not entered on the balance sheet. And assets should be taken care of – yes the physical ones, but even more so the human ones. Vacations are a time for regeneration of human assets – regeneration of both physical and mental assets, a time of downtime, a time of rest. Even machines that work 24 hours a day sometimes need a shutdown, a downtime and an overhaul, otherwise they will quickly wear out, break down and need replacing. And does anyone want the company’s purchased machinery to break down?
Human resources are no different. Man needs rest all the more, because by not resting, by not regenerating his strength, he exposes himself to consequences in the form of, at the very least, exhaustion, further decline in his efficiency and effectiveness, professional burnout, and even illness and death. In Japan, the cult of work is so deeply ingrained that there are cases of karoshi – sudden death caused by overwork and stress.
Now imagine that the negative effects of overwork affect the company’s most important employees, and even people who are not seen as employees – the company’s managers – owners, board members. Yes – these people, too, and even they, above all, should eagerly use their vacations for the good of the company. Wrong decisions of managers, resulting from prolonged stress and exhaustion will have the most serious consequences for the functioning of the company. And it does not matter whether they are employees who work physically or mentally. Personally, I’ve seen cases of companies where I’ve worked, where the owners went on vacations for weeks – even months. After which they returned to the company rested, full of energy, full of ideas and initiatives. These are the owners of companies that they have managed for many years with excellent growth and profitability. They themselves said – vacation is for the company, not for the employee. They went on to say – a vacation should last at least three weeks. The first week to forget about work, the second to rest, the third to long for work. And they encouraged employees to take vacations. The company needs regenerated, energized employees. I believe that, among other things, because managers realized the seriousness of vacation, these companies have done so well. The more developed corporations even provide for employees to take longer vacations, even a year’s leave, when employees can meet their ambitious personal goals.
Unfortunately, I have also known companies where managers did not take vacations for years, because they believed that they could not take vacations, that the company would collapse without them, or that problems would arise in the company during this time that the remaining employees in the company could not handle without them. These companies functioned much worse than those previously mentioned. Fatigue, lack of patience, discouragement, mood swings and despondency rule in these companies. And since the example goes from the top and affects subordinate employees, the views of lack of need also carry down the organization and, in a domino effect, the entire organization suffers. The benefits of the lack of leave are none, in fact, only the previously mentioned problems are born.
So, in order to avoid organizational problems – as managers of companies, let’s go on vacation ourselves, and let’s not only encourage employees to take vacations, but let’s make sure that they don’t accumulate them (there are such cases) but use them. For our sake, for the sake of our employees and for the sake of our organization. This is a key condition for the good, healthy development of the company.