14 Ways to De-Stress Employee Vacations


Employees truly deserve paid vacations. They struggle through stressful jobs most of the year, and productivity goes down if they don't get a break. From a corporate perspective, investment in good vacation programs reduces workplace stress absenteeism, health care costs, and accidents. Many employees, however, come back from vacation with the half-joking remark about having to return to work to rest up. Far too many people find vacations just as stressful as the jobs they do every day.

Following are fourteen ways company managers can de-stress vacations, increase productivity, improve< quality, boost profits, and get the most from the corporate investment.

1. Develop vacation savings plans so employees will be financially prepared for this big expense

2. Provide continuous counseling for personal finances, budgeting, and credit issues

3. Double check for payroll errors to make sure employees are not affected by discrepancies while they are on vacation

4. Distribute job responsibilities to prevent employees' returning to overflowing in-boxes

5. Announce job changes after vacations, not before

6. Provide in-house workshops on vacation planning

7. Negotiate corporate discounts with travel agencies

8. Show employees how to research travel plans on internet

9. On the last day before vacation, give employees an extra half-day off for last minute preparations. This strategy brings value to the company through motivation, esprit, and quality control.

10. Coach employees to get major projects out of the way two weeks before vacations to prevent stressful, sometimes inadequate, last-minute efforts

12. Ask for destination contact information for purpose of emergency notification and then use the info to send a special note or small gift that will be waiting for them upon arrival.

11. Demonstrate your interest by scheduling time to visit with employees about their great adventure - before and after vacation

13. Get employee input on vacation schedules to make sure dates work out with spouse's schedule

14. Encourage a more restful week-long vacation instead of a less rewarding one or two day absence

There you have it - fourteen ways to de-stress vacations. Your company gets its money's worth out of these vacations when employees are rested and ready to get back to work.

For more info on controlling workplace stress send an email to: 3sessionstress@sendfree.com

Dale Collie - professional speaker, formerUS Army Ranger, CEO, and a Fast Company top50 innovative leader. Author of "WinningUnder Fire." (McGraw-Hill) collie@couragebuilders.com


More Resources

Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting

More Management Information:

Related Articles

Change or Die! To Change Your Organization, Hire a Business Coach
It is a common business axiom - change or die. As a small or mid-sized business owner or a manager, there will be times you will need to make changes in your organization but may not be sure how to go about it.
Identifying Potential in Ourselves and Others
If there is someone nearby as you read this look in their eyes. Look closely and you will see great potential inside this person regardless of how "successful" or accomplished they are.
Innovation Management - some ideas are better than others
Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are distinct processes that enhance problem identification and idea generation and, similarly, distinct processes that enhance idea selection, development and commercialisation.
What 80% of Businesses Don't Know: Tips for Improving Your Working Capital Management
What is the number one way to prevent failure in business? Take a minute to really think about your answer. What comes to mind? Increasing patients or customers served? ? Effective marketing? ? Location, location, location? ? Improving patient or customer care? ? Being the best in your industry?Although these are all essential aspects of business, the answer isn't any of the above.
Is Your Management Style Assisting or Hurting Your Business?
Many times business owners can have significant differences in management styles that can deter the growth of both the employees and the business.Employees can have differing needs that require differing methods of management as well.
Communicating CEOs
I see a PR firm has done a survey on the amount of time Canadian CEOs spend on communication, and found they spend almost half of their time on communication.I think we're supposed to be impressed that CEOs spend that much time on communication.
Four Employee Behaviors That Can Kill Your Business
I found it important to clarify for employees what "deal-breaker" behavior was at my company. These are the things I insisted would not be tolerated and would lead to immediate or ultimate termination, depending on the nature of the infraction of these hard and fast rules.
Too Much Time Treating Symptoms
A man drives down the highway each day on his way to work. On Monday he gets a flat tire.
How to do SWOT Analysis for your Business
SWOT analysis is needed for all business to understand how to improve their business.To have best SWOT Analysis we use below methodSWOT on Strengths that you can use for improving your business.
Classifying Motivational Needs
While there exist several useful definitions of motivation, for our purposes we will define it as an individual's desire to do something based upon a need. When a person is confronted with a need (either perceived or actual), he or she usually is motivated to perform specific actions for some sort of gratification.
Project Management, A Forgotten Perspective
Effective project managers know how to get the job done, and get it done right. Success comes not only from wise selection of the team members and utilization of the best project management software tools; effective managers know how to lead, and how to encourage project team members to do their best.
Managing Motivation
"Without the chance to meaningfully participate in steering one's own destiny, without the opportunity to gain the sincere respect of one's own peers, without an honest stake in making the community more successful through one's own work and ideas, employability can quickly decay into generic training programs or bogus choices..
Communicating with Offsite Workers
How do you, or would you, communicate with employees who work offsite?Perhaps you have telecommuters reporting to you, or sales reps who work out of offices in other cities. How do you communicate with them?Let's start with the strategic issues: what do you want to accomplish by communicating with them? And, why would they want to communicate with you?Strategic means you'll probably want to deal with issues like productivity, accountability, and predictability.
Think Time... Its Now Or Never
I recently read an article published in the June, 2005 issue of Fast Co. magazine.
Seven Cs to Avoid Procedure Writing Errors
You do your best to make sure your organization is operating as effectively as possible. But if your policies and procedures are incomplete, outdated, or inconsistent, then they are not driving the performance improvement they should.
Innovation Management - Rigorous data analysis
Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are other useful definitions in this field, for example, creativity can be defined as consisting of a number of ideas, a number of diverse ideas and a number of novel ideas.
Innovation Management - Emotion, Habit, and Culture can be Hard to Change!
Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are distinct processes that enhance problem identification and idea generation and, similarly, distinct processes that enhance idea selection, development and commercialisation.
Spotlight on Productivity: How to Overcome E-Mail Overload
Do you ever feel overwhelmed by e-mail? Have you ever spent more of your day wading through your e-mail than managing your work? Are you looking for ways to spend less time creating, managing and answering messages? Discover how to overcome e-mail overload and be more productive by writing more effective e-mail messages and reducing the volume of e-mail.Write Effective E-Mail MessagesStart improving your e-mail effectiveness by creating and formatting easy to follow content, and by using pre-written responses.
Making Your Workers Your Partners
There is an inherent conflict between owners and managers of companies. The former want, for instance, to minimize costs - the latter to draw huge salaries as long as they are in power (who knows what will transpire tomorrow).
Better Manager Skills - How to Learn
When you first take over a department, expectations are usually high but operations are sometimes in disarray. The staff is disorganized, goals aren't being met, and hours are spent on unproductive tasks.