How Much Vacation Time Should Employees Get?
People need to take short breaks during the day to recharge. Likewise, we need longer ones during the year to recharge on an even deeper level. That’s where vacations come in. Vacations are just as important as the lunch break and two fifteens.
HR Tools analyzed vacation and productivity in a recent article saying,
“The most productive, successful employees are typically those that utilize their vacation time and return to the office with a renewed sense of drive and determination.”
This isn’t really news to most people. We all know how we feel when we go too long without a break. But I reiterate the point because it makes a noticeable difference in the way we feel and in the way we perform.
How much vacation time should a company offer?
Helping customers set up their accruals tracking has given me the opportunity to observe trends in how much vacation time employers offer their employees. The differences are dramatic!
Smaller and, in particular, young companies often offer slightly less robust benefits packages with fewer vacation and sick days, but not always. Below is a chart of vacation allowance averages. In reality there is a wide range of variation among companies.
Average number of total paid days off in the United States Years of Service
Source: Society for Human Resource Management, 2004 SHRM Benefits Survey.
The Timesheets.com software offers full accruals tracking to make the tracking process simple. In addition to tracking vacation and sick hours, employers can track holiday hours too.
The standard paid holidays include:
- New Years Day
- President’s Day
- Memorial Day
- Forth of July
- Labor Day
- Thanksgiving
- Christmas
Additional reading:
averages Salary.com
holidays Standard Vacation at About.com
I totally agree with you. Everyone needs to have a vacation to recharge our battery in order for us to be more productive at work. For me, every employee should have 4 days of vacation.
Per year? I doubt 4 days would be quite enough to really wind down. If you gave them 5, they could take off somewhere for 9 days (two weekends).
LOL, 4 days per a year…is this a joke?
maybe they meant weeks
2 month like in Europe, so you can have good life-work balance.