Vacations: A Necessary Diversion
Many Forgo Time Off Or Take Work With Them
By Kevin Smith© Pasadena Star-News, June 26, 2005
Some people live for vacations.
They count the days before they can climb aboard a jet and be whisked off to Hawaii or begin a cross-country jaunt to Florida or New York.
But does one ever really get away from work?
"I look at it in relation to my own employees," said Gary Kaplan, president of Gary Kaplan & Associates, an executive search firm based in Pasadena. "A fair number of the people I interact with never seem to take a real break."
Kaplan, who recently returned from a European vacation, said he observed the same phenomenon there. An "inordinate number" of vacationers, he said, travel with laptop computers. And lines are long in front of Internet cafes.
In recent years, many companies have downsized or consolidated their operations, forcing workers to shoulder more work.
"Because of what's happened in the job market, I think a lot of people are very concerned about their professional well-being," Kaplan said. "They are pretty conscientious and tend to stay in touch."
Nonetheless, Kaplan says he's a big proponent of taking needed time off.
"If you just take two or three days off, you're not really going to wind down," he said. "But when someone takes a week or two away, they generally come back refreshed and with a more positive perspective in relation to their work."
Gary Binder, co-owner of Binder Resources Inc., an executive recruiting firm in La Verne, agreed.
"I think vacations are really important," he said. "It charges people back up. It gives them a chance to get their creativity going again. They can get out of the rut they're in and get a new perspective."
In the United States, there's no requirement that any form of paid time off be granted to private-sector employees. But paid vacation is the most common employee benefit, and 80 percent of private-sector employees have access to annual vacation time.
Many other countries require companies to offer paid vacation time for workers who have been on the job one year.
In France, the required paid vacation time is five weeks. In Germany it's four weeks, and in Saudi Arabia it's 15 days of paid time off.
According to a report by Universal Orlando Resort, about half of the nation's full-time workers didn't use all the vacation days they accrued over the past year, giving up an average of eight vacation days each -- nearly half of the number of days available to them.
All told, the American work force sacrifices the equivalent of more than 3 million years of unused vacation time annually, the study found.
-- Kevin Smith can be reached at (626) 962-8811, Ext. 2701, or by e-mail at kevin.smith@sgvn.com.
