It’s no secret that Americans “like” to work, especially since we are now in the middle of an economic slump. But with more people working longer hours, vacations are becoming more than just a “break,” they’re becoming a necessity to ensure good health and harmony among employees.

In the last blog, we took a look at how America is one of the few countries to skimp out on giving its employees the vacation time that they not only deserve but need. The Framingham Heart Study has been around since 1948, and since its inception, the objective has been to identify common factors that contribute to cardiovascular disease. According to the Framingham Heart Study, researchers looked at questionnaires that women in the study had filled out over twenty years and discovered that those who took a vacation once every six years or less were approximately eight times more likely to develop heart disease or have a heart attack than those who took two vacations each year. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Working long hours day in and day out without any end in sight leaves only a little time to yourself (we delicately refer to this as “the weekend”) while it leaves plenty of time for stress and anxiety.

How Too Much Work Can Hurt You

There is a difference between taking a vacation because you’re downright lazy at work versus taking one because it is necessary to prevent a total mental meltdown. Here are a few ways that work can hurt you if you’re not careful:

• Your Health: Working too much or for a boss, who demands a lot of productivity beyond the normal scope of a 40-hour workweek, can lead to fatigue, irritability, accidents and injuries. Too many work hours reduces the amount of time you have to yourself for exercise or other athletic-type activities and encourages bad eating habits (i.e. trips to fast food restaurants because you didn’t have the time and/or energy to go food shopping to make yourself a healthy meal).
• Employment: According to Take Back Your Time, working too many hours reduces employment as fewer people are hired and then required to work longer hours, or are hired for poor part-time jobs without benefits.
• Yourself: Too many work hours leaves us little to no time to ourselves for introspection, spiritual growth or mere self-development.
• Your Relationships: Working too many hours is a great way to ruin relationships with friends and family as well as other people we care about. It is often difficult to find the balance between knowing how and when to cut yourself off from work so that you can enjoy precious time with loved ones. One employee that I work with recounts how working too much ultimately led to the demise of his relationship with his fiancee:

I worked for an ad agency and was putting in like 70 hours a week. I was flying out for production meetings and filming commercials and was so focused on getting ahead that I kinda’ took things for granted. When I left work and went home, I was taking calls from clients, so even when I was at home, I was working…

So, the next time you accept a job somewhere, make sure you know what your priorities are and be sure to communicate those effectively to your boss. And whatever the case may be, don’t underestimate the fact that even though you may not feel it is necessary, you need to make sure that you take a vacation!

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Tags: Marketing, Work Related by Janelle - 1 Comment »

It’s not surprising to find out that there are not too many people out there who actually “enjoy” their jobs. For many, it’s simply a way to earn an income to help sustain their current lifestyle. However, with the gasoline prices going up and the economy in a slump, many are grateful to even have a job. That being said, increasing numbers of people are choosing to stay home, opting for “staycations” versus vacations. But with more people working longer hours, vacations are becoming more obscure, lending criticism to the fact that vacations may very well be disappearing altogether.

According to the International Herald Tribune,

A global study by Expedia.com found that about a third of employed Americans usually do not take all the vacation days they are entitled to, leaving an average of three days on the table.

What’s the matter, people? Don’t you want a break?! Leftover vacation days aren’t unusual in the United States, especially at a time like now where so many of us are worried, if not paranoid, about making sure that our job stays put. Who’s to say that if you took a vacation, that you wouldn’t come back to find out that you had been replaced by someone else who appears more willing and dedicated?

Take Back Your Time is a nonprofit organization that studies issues related to overwork, and according to the site, vacations are “vanishing”:

Vacations are vanishing. Only 14% of Americans will get a vacation of two weeks or longer this year. A third of women and a quarter of men get no annual leave anymore, as annual leave benefits are being eliminated like pensions. Many others are afraid to use their paid leave for fear they could be laid off or demoted if they do. No wonder the average American vacation is now down to a long weekend.

Unlike 127 other countries, the U.S. has no minimum paid-leave law. Australians have four weeks off by law, the Europeans four and five weeks. The Japanese two weeks. We have zero. The lack of annual leave standards means many Americans never get time off, says “No Vacation Nation,” a recent report by the Center of Economic Policy Research (CEPR).

The CEPR study, No-Vacation Nation, reviewed international vacation and holiday laws and discovered that the United States is the only “advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers any paid vacations or holidays.” The study goes on to explain that this lack of paid vacation as well as paid holidays in the U.S is particularly “acute for lower-wage and part-time workers,” as well as employees of small businesses.

to be continued…

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Tags: Work Related by Janelle - No Comments »