Do most companies actively and vocally encourage employees to take time off? Possibly. I did find one survey that supported this:
A 2007 joint Ipsos/Expedia survey indicated that 75% of Canadians said their employer encourages them to use all their vacation time.
Yet 28% still felt guilty about taking time off.
Here’s another one that caught my eye:
A 2024 Eagle Hill Consulting survey revealed that 85% of workers feel companies should require people to take at least some vacation every year.
So it looks like it really depends on who you’re working for.
Some companies will remind you to take your vacation days and will emphasize work-life balance. They’ll remind you to rest, recharge, unplug, prioritize well-being, and maybe even throw in a half-day. And yet, as the first survey indicated, when employees actually take time off, something weird happens: They feel guilty.
So why does taking time off feel so weirdly wrong, like leaving a store without buying anything?
Here are a few reasons.
1. The benefit exists, but the culture does not support it.
There is a big difference between having vacation days and working in a culture where people can actually use them without backlash.
On paper, your company’s PTO policy may be generous. In practice, the message may be very different. Maybe people are praised for being constantly available. Maybe managers send emails during someone’s vacation and expect quick replies. Maybe employees return from vacation to subtle punishments, like a backlog of work, resentment, missed opportunities, or comments like, “Must be nice.”
When the policy says “take time off” but the culture says “prove you are still committed,” it’s not hard to figure out which one matters more.
2. No one wants to be the person who makes life harder for everyone else.
My friend will work much longer hours in the weeks before her scheduled time off. Why? Because she doesn’t want to burden her team with the extra load while she’s gone. And because it’s what management expects. Can you say “red flag”?
A lot of time-off guilt is about the people left behind. Employees know their work won’t magically disappear when they’re away. Someone may have to cover urgent emails, answer questions, finish tasks, or deal with clients.
So people feel guilty. They worry their coworkers will be annoyed. They worry they are creating extra work. They worry their absence will make them look selfish or unreliable.
That guilt becomes even stronger in understaffed teams—which, by the way, is a management problem to resolve, not a team problem. When everyone is already stretched thin, one person taking time off can feel like removing one paddle from a boat. It’s technically still possible to move forward, but it’s going to be a challenge.
The problem is not the employee taking time off. The problem is a system that depends on everyone being present at all times in order to function.
3. Employees fear being seen as less committed.
In some workplaces, dedication is measured less by results and more by sacrifice.
Who stays late? Who replies fastest? Who answers emails on vacation? Who says, “Don’t worry, I’ll handle it,” while they bite their tongue in frustration and resentment?
When that is the culture, taking time off can feel risky. Employees may worry that going on vacation makes them look less ambitious, less dependable, or less invested. They may fear being compared to the person who never takes vacation and, frankly, never sets boundaries.
The irony is that people who never take time off are not necessarily more committed. Sometimes they are just more afraid.
4. Managers say the right thing, but model the opposite.
Managers have a huge influence on whether employees feel “allowed” to rest.
A manager may say, “Take your vacation, you deserve it,” but if they never take time off themselves, the real message is clear. Remember, employees watch behavior more than they listen to slogans.
If leaders constantly work long hours without a break, employees may assume rest is acceptable only in theory. They may think time off is something you are allowed to request but not something you’re actually supposed to use. Like the manager who called a friend of mine a “coward” for taking half a day off to deal with the flu. I am not kidding.
Managers who choose not to take time off are free to do so. But they have no right to judge those who do.
5. People feel guilty because working too much has started to feel normal.
Not all time-off guilt comes from the workplace. Sometimes the call is coming from inside the house.
Many people have learned to believe that rest has to be earned, that being busy means being valuable, or that taking a break is lazy. Maybe they grew up hearing stories about grandparents who went to work in a blizzard, with pneumonia, uphill both ways, and still somehow made dinner afterward. That kind of toughness may sound admirable, but it can also teach people to ignore their limits until their body just gives up on them.
A lot of employees treat rest like something they are allowed to have only after every task is done, which is almost funny because the task list is never really done. There is always another email, another deadline, another request, another “quick thing” that is absolutely not quick. So vacation starts to feel wrong. Doing nothing feels irresponsible.
So instead of actually enjoying their time off, people punish themselves for not being productive.
Rest is not a reward for finishing everything. Rest is part of how people stay functional enough to keep doing anything well.
How Companies Can Reduce Time-Off Guilt
If organizations want employees to actually use their time off, they need to make it normal and logistically possible.
That means organizations need enough trained staff that one absence does not create chaos. Employees should not be praised for working while sitting on the beach. And “urgent” should not mean “we screwed up—put down your umbrella drink and save us.”
And how about being more vocal about the benefits of taking time off?
If a company offers time off but makes people feel guilty for using it, then it’s not just a benefit—it’s a benefit with strings attached.
Employees should not have to apologize for resting.
(Is your team burned out? Check out ARCH Profile’s two burnout screening tools: BSS-NSF-R2 for non-service fields and BSS-SF-R2 for service fields.)