So, as an employer in Canada you are obligated to provide vacation to your employees. This is a tremendous thing but here in Canada, we are still behind a lot of countries in terms of the amount of vacation we offer to employees. Just to highlight this fact, Canada’s mandated minimum vacation entitlement is 10 days per year…only 2 more than the mandated minimum vacation in Honduras. Now why does Honduras ring a bell from a labour point of view? Oh YES, the sweatshops and child labour.
Obviously, our labour laws and standards (apart from our vacation entitlement ) are superior in most ways to Honduras and I merely provided the fact to show that we are behind on this particular issue. The worst part of this is that employees are not taking all of their earned vacation. (this from Expedia’s Vacation Deprivation survey results)
As someone who has the luxury of taking a vacation day any day she wants (and does!), I understand and truly appreciate the value of taking time off in order to rejuvenate. So why are any of us leaving earned vacation on the table? This makes no sense on either the employee or the employer side. From the employee’s side, it is obvious; vacation really should be more fun than working, right? Plus we can burn out if we do not turn off every so often. This should also be an employer’s concern…keeping employees motivated and rejuvenated makes for a more productive employee.
Some great ideas were presented in the January 2015 edition of the HR Professional. They include:
Take your vacation time BEFORE you need it.
Take a few shorter vacations throughout the year
Come back a day earlier in order to ease yourself into your routine before returning to work.
So now that Christmas is over, and maybe our thoughts turn to getting away from the snow, take advantage of vacation entitlement and USE it!
Obviously, our labour laws and standards (apart from our vacation entitlement ) are superior in most ways to Honduras and I merely provided the fact to show that we are behind on this particular issue. The worst part of this is that employees are not taking all of their earned vacation. (this from Expedia’s Vacation Deprivation survey results)
As someone who has the luxury of taking a vacation day any day she wants (and does!), I understand and truly appreciate the value of taking time off in order to rejuvenate. So why are any of us leaving earned vacation on the table? This makes no sense on either the employee or the employer side. From the employee’s side, it is obvious; vacation really should be more fun than working, right? Plus we can burn out if we do not turn off every so often. This should also be an employer’s concern…keeping employees motivated and rejuvenated makes for a more productive employee.
Some great ideas were presented in the January 2015 edition of the HR Professional. They include:
Take your vacation time BEFORE you need it.
Take a few shorter vacations throughout the year
Come back a day earlier in order to ease yourself into your routine before returning to work.
So now that Christmas is over, and maybe our thoughts turn to getting away from the snow, take advantage of vacation entitlement and USE it!
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