Working less, vacationing more can increase productivity, lower stress
Stress for Success
July 3, 2007

Tomorrow we celebrate America’s independence. It’s one of the few holidays that virtually everyone gets off from work and spends it eating and perhaps drinking too much. But hey! It’s only one day. And that’s the problem.

This year July 4th falls in the middle of the week so fewer people will take additional days off to create a long weekend. And we Americans, working far more than other industrialized nations, need not only more vacation days, we need to take off the days we earn.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American gets 8.1 days vacation after one year on the job, and only 10.2 days vacation after three years! We haven’t worked this many hours since the 1920s. Almost 40% of us work more than 50 hours a week! This is absolutely nuts!

How can humans be expected to produce quality work when they’re perpetually overstressed and exhausted? Do employers who pressure employees not to take all of their vacation time actually think they’re increasing productivity? Does a small business owner expect to be more industrious after working 60 to 70 hour weeks month after month?

According to a National Institute of Management report performance declines 25% after a 60 hour workweek.

But does more time off equate to greater productivity? Joe Robinson, author of "Work to Live: The Guide to Getting a Life" says evidence shows that it does. Vacation days mandated by law vary from 30 in Spain and France, to 25 in Japan, to 21 in Norway down to zero in the United States. Americans work 6½ weeks more a year then the British and 12½ weeks more than the Germans!

"Contrary to the American myth,” Robinson says, “a number of European countries have caught up with the United States in productivity." According to the US Federal Reserve Board, Europe had a higher productivity growth rate in 14 of the 19 years between 1981 and 2000.

Not only can time off enhance productivity but the opposite is also true; stress, partly caused by too little vacation time, is estimated to cost employers $150 billion a year.

But corporate America doesn’t seem at all close to changing its attitude about paid time off (couldn’t they at least let us take off our birthdays?). So how can you use your few and very precious annual vacation days to maximize stress reduction?

It makes logical sense to me that instead of taking all of your leave days in one continuous vacation to take off several long weekends a year. Simply planning a longer holiday can cause significant stress in itself and by the time you've adapted to the different pace of your planned vacation it’s time to go back to work.

Instead consider strategically scheduling your vacation days with long weekends such as Labor Day or Memorial Day. Several mini-vacations each year give you more frequent stress breaks so you won’t reach the peak of stress waiting an eternity for your once a year time away from work.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com with your questions or for information about her workshops on this and other topics and to invite her to speak to your organization.