Winning Workplaces

With many U.S.-based businesses set to offer time off to employees on Memorial Day on Monday, I thought I would provide some workplace team building and employee engagement best practices from our website that deal with vacation days. Here goes....

Encourage employees to use all their allotted vacation days. A study by the Families and Work Institute found that employees who didn't use all their vacation time reported much higher stress levels than those who did. [Source]
Offer employees credits toward extra vacation days as part of an on-site and/or off-site health and wellness program. [Source]
Experiment with a completely trust-based vacation policy – ie, time off at the discretion of employees and their managers. It has worked for firms such as Morningstar. [Source]
Grant vacation days on a first-come, first-served basis as opposed to by seniority. The majority of respondents to one of our past web polls do this. [Source]
Pooling all major types of leave (sick and personal as well as vacation) into a central leave bank can serve as your most effective absence control program (vs. disciplinary action and bonuses). [Source]
An "above and beyond" vacation policy can greatly improve employee tenure and decrease turnover. Politics and Prose bookstore, for instance, offers a minimum of 3 weeks paid to all employees working 24 hours or more per week; 20% of the workforce has stayed for 10 years or longer. [Source]
Opening time-off programs to uses beyond vacation and illness can help you better satisfy older employees in your workforce. [Source]
If you have healthy reserves, consider purchasing one or more vacation properties for use by employees. Certes Financial Pros and Rackspace Hosting both do this and have seen great results in terms of added productivity and employee satisfaction. [Source]
Use vacations as growth opportunities for employees filling in. Summit Aviation does this well. [Source]
Check with other smart firms on what works for them and why, and adapt for your organization. You'll have a great opportunity to do that at our upcoming ROI of Great Workplaces Conference.