Vacation in the 21st Century
According to a recent survey conducted by the Creative Group, only 13 percent of executives said they don’t attend to business at all when they are on vacation. One in five check in with the office several times a day! A recent online poll at Monster.ca revealed similar results: 37% of English Canadians and 33% of French Canadians admitted they will be using their cell phone, BlackBerry, or laptop to check in with work periodically while vacationing. Even more shocking is the fact that fewer than two-thirds of Canadian employees take as much vacation time as they are entitled to, in many cases because they don’t feel it’s worth taking time off, only to return to a backlog of work.
I haven’t read any stats about small business owners, but it would seem to me that if people who get paid vacation time are not taking advantage of it, small business owners are even less likely to take a break, especially if they don’t have anyone to keep the business running while they are off.
How about you? Are you taking time off this summer? How much? What arrangements have you made for your business (or your job) during your absence? Will you be checking in? How often? Please leave your answers in a comment.
Yeah, but you know… for me, I take my laptop and spend 30 minutes or so just deleting emails or forwarding to another team member. If I come back to a huge amount of emails, it completely overwhelms me when I get back. I fret about it the entire time I’m on vacation. So yes, I check in once in the morning and usually once at night. Could I have one of my team members check my email? Yes, but there’s no way anyone would know who to send everything to, 30 minutes of my time per day is worth it.
Comment by Candy — July 31, 2007 @ 10:06 pm