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Do your company a favor – take the rest of the week off

Do your company a favor – take the rest of the week off
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Happy Fourth of July! Brats, beer, perhaps a dip in the pool and off to the fireworks.

Then back to work.

It’s probably too late to change your schedule now, but if you aren’t planning on taking all of your allotted vacation this year, reconsider.

Americans for some reason have been taking less and less vacation this millennium. According to Projecttimeoff.com, workers in the United States took an average of 20.3 days off in 2000. In 2015, that was down to an average of 16.2 days.

In 2015, 55 percent of American workers surveyed left 658 million vacation days unused – that’s more than $61.4 billion in forfeited benefits – and many of them will be lost for good. Projecttimeoff said 222 million of those unused days couldn’t be banked or rolled over.

The survey focused on employees, but even employers or entrepreneurs have been cutting back on the amount of time they take away from the office. That’s bad even if you are in the early stages of trying to build a business. The brain is like a battery. You have to recharge it.

Entrepreneur.com listed three reasons why every entrepreneur should go on vacation:

  • The brain needs extended downtime.
  • When the cat’s away, the mice grow more confident.
  • A leader should set the tone.

No one works well under constant stress and deadlines. With the constant connections of phones, the office follows many people wherever they go – which means even less normal downtime. If you want your company to be at its best, your workers need to step away. And you need to show them it’s OK.

If you haven’t scheduled any time off between now and Christmas, take time in between fireworks to imagine a trip – and book it. Your bottom line will thank you.