Stuck in the Office? Professionals take less time for themselves

Frank M. Evans III is like many other professionals.

The managing partner at the Springfield office of law firm Lathrop & Gage LC is taking fewer vacations now than he did when he started three decades ago.

As managing partner, Evans doesn't accrue vacation time; he can take time off as his schedule and workload allow.

But that doesn't happen very often these days. Evans said he's taken just one week off in the past year.

"I think it's the overall increase in competition in business life in general," Evans said. "Everything is more complex and more involved now, and all of that increases the amount of time and emotional energy you have to put in."

And Evans isn't alone. More executives than ever are finding themselves chained to their desks, according to an August 2007 survey by staffing and human resources company Hudson.

According to the national survey, 56 percent of workers who get vacation time don't use all of it, and 30 percent say they take less than half of their days off. One in five also say they only take a day here or there, without taking a full vacation.

That doesn't mean, however, that employers are holding back on offering paid time off; about half of employees receive more than 11 days each year.

The technology conundrum

There are several reasons for the reluctance to leave the office, but Missouri State University management professor Wes Scroggins said one of the most significant causes is the advent of technology, which has fed into a growing demand by businesses that employees be more efficient, doing more work with fewer people. The result is employees who are stuck at the office.

"If you want to get ahead, you're expected to go the extra mile," Scroggins said. "That, psychologically, can create situations where people self-impose high demands to get ahead."

It also creates a situation, Scroggins said, where an employee's absence for even a week is felt more heavily by co-workers - and by the vacationing employee when he or she returns to the office.

"If people take off for a vacation, look at the amount of work that they go back to," he said. "We come back to a desk piled full of new things we have to do, and a lot of times it's just easier to avoid that if we don't take the time at all."

Workload versus vacation time is a factor for city of Springfield employees, according to Beth Hall, senior human resources coordinator. Hall said city employees can accrue a maximum of twice their annual allotment of time off - which is two weeks a year for their first seven years of service - but some of them aren't using their time to get away from work.

She noted that it's partly due to the fact that the city now requires more from its employees than it did in the past - a shift that's more financial than it is cultural.

"We've had some budget cuts in the last few months, and I do know anecdotally that it's more difficult for folks to schedule vacation time because of staffing shortages," Hall said. "I think we've yet to see how those staffing reductions will filter through the organization."

Disconnecting from work

And even for those employees who do wrangle time outside the office, technology has created another challenge: being able to leave work behind during vacation.

"Employees - professionals especially - will always have e-mail, the cell phone, the Blackberry," Scroggins said. "You're just connected all the time, and that leads to additional demands (from) employers. That's why we see it getting so hard to get away today."

At Drury University - where staff members accrue vacation time on a monthly basis rather than in a yearly lump sum - many employees use technology to keep in touch with students during vacations, though they're not necessarily pressured by the school to do so.

"We have a lot of dedicated staff members that want to make sure things run well while they're away, so it's difficult for them to separate and totally get away," said Drury Human Resources Director Scotti Siebert. "Even if people just call in and check if things are OK, they haven't made that break. People are so plugged in through technology that it's hard to turn it off."

According to the Hudson survey, 35 percent of managers said they check in with the office - often daily - during vacation, while 34 percent said their bosses expect them to be accessible while they're out.

"I certainly spend more time on vacations in business-related activities, with cell phones and computers, than I ever did in the past," attorney Evans said. "Of course, I go back to a time when there weren't as many computers and there certainly weren't cell phones."

What to do?

Scroggins said that managers need to be aware of employees who aren't taking enough vacation, and make a conscious effort to encourage them to take a break.

"Employers can help by creating some work-life policies, making sure that those are enforced throughout an organization," Scroggins said, adding that some companies in other parts of the country has gone as far as to mandate vacation for high-stress jobs.

"Train managers to identify sources of stress and burnout in employees working long hours, and provide those times for employees to get away if they need to," Scroggins added.

How much vacation time Drury employees earn each month varies depending on length of service, but Siebert said employees are allowed to stockpile the monthly allotments for up to 12 months - and they are encouraged in the school's policy manual to use the time they've earned.

"We encourage staff members to use it because it's to their benefit as well as the university," she said. "We want people to be able to get away and come back refreshed and recharged."[[In-content Ad]]