Do most companies actively and vocally encourage employees to take time off? Possibly. I did find one survey that supported this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A 2007 joint Ipsos\/Expedia survey indicated that 75% of Canadians said their employer encourages them to use all their vacation time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet 28% still felt guilty about taking time off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s another one that caught my eye:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A 2024 Eagle Hill Consulting survey revealed that 85% of workers feel companies should require people to take at least some vacation every year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So it looks like it really depends on who you\u2019re working for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some companies will remind you to take your vacation days and will emphasize work-life balance. They\u2019ll 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<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So why does taking time off feel so weirdly wrong, like leaving a store without buying anything?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are a few reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a big difference between having vacation days and working in a culture where people can actually use them without backlash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On paper, your company\u2019s 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\u2019s vacation and expect quick replies. Maybe employees return from vacation to subtle punishments, like a backlog of work, resentment, missed opportunities, or comments like, \u201cMust be nice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the policy says \u201ctake time off\u201d but the culture says \u201cprove you are still committed,\u201d it\u2019s not hard to figure out which one matters more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My friend will work much longer hours in the weeks before her scheduled time off. Why? Because she doesn\u2019t want to burden her team with the extra load while she\u2019s gone. And because it\u2019s what management expects. Can you say \u201cred flag\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A lot of time-off guilt is about the people left behind. Employees know their work won\u2019t magically disappear when they\u2019re away. Someone may have to cover urgent emails, answer questions, finish tasks, or deal with clients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That guilt becomes even stronger in understaffed teams\u2014which, 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\u2019s technically still possible to move forward, but it\u2019s going to be a challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In some workplaces, dedication is measured less by results and more by sacrifice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Who stays late? Who replies fastest? Who answers emails on vacation? Who says, \u201cDon\u2019t worry, I\u2019ll handle it,\u201d while they bite their tongue in frustration and resentment?<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The irony is that people who never take time off are not necessarily more committed. Sometimes they are just more afraid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Managers have a huge influence on whether employees feel \u201callowed\u201d to rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A manager may say, \u201cTake your vacation, you deserve it,\u201d but if they never take time off themselves, the real message is clear. Remember, employees watch behavior more than they listen to slogans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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\u2019re actually supposed to use. Like the manager who called a friend of mine a \u201ccoward\u201d for taking half a day off to deal with the flu. I am not kidding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Managers who choose not to take time off are free to do so. But they have no right to judge those who do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not all time-off guilt comes from the workplace. Sometimes the call is coming from inside the house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 \u201cquick thing\u201d that is absolutely not quick. So vacation starts to feel wrong. Doing nothing feels irresponsible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So instead of actually enjoying their time off, people punish themselves for not being productive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rest is not a reward for finishing everything. Rest is part of how people stay functional enough to keep doing anything well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If organizations want employees to actually use their time off, they need to make it normal and logistically possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 \u201curgent\u201d should not mean \u201cwe screwed up\u2014put down your umbrella drink and save us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And how about being more vocal about the benefits of taking time off?<\/p>\n\n\n\n If a company offers time off but makes people feel guilty for using it, then it\u2019s not just a benefit\u2014it\u2019s a benefit with strings attached.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Employees should not have to apologize for resting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Is your team burned out? Check out ARCH Profile\u2019s two burnout screening tools: BSS-NSF-R2<\/a> for non-service fields and BSS-SF-R2<\/a> for service fields.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Taking time off should not feel like you\u2019ve committed a crime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-employee-well-being"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=939"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":941,"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939\/revisions\/941"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}1. The benefit exists, but the culture does not support it.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
2. No one wants to be the person who makes life harder for everyone else.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
3. Employees fear being seen as less committed.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
4. Managers say the right thing, but model the opposite.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
5. People feel guilty because working too much has started to feel normal.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
How Companies Can Reduce Time-Off Guilt<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n