With summer upon us – which is looking set to be better than last year’s disappointing washout – here’s some more positive news: encouraging employees to use their annual leave could help to improve productivity and reduce the risk of sick leave.
According to research cited by EURES (EURopean Employment Services), using annual leave:
- Improves employee productivity by up to 40%
- Reduces the risk of sick leave by 28% [1].
Despite this, according to a 2024 survey of 1,000 UK employees, only 35% of British workers used all the leave they were entitled to. And 17% of workers had more than five days of unclaimed leave at the end of the year [2].
The research revealed that one reason for this may be because many workers “feel too busy, understaffed, and worried about their jobs to take time off”.
This rings true, as the report indicates that the biggest contributing factor of unclaimed holiday are staff shortages.
Another startling statistic suggests the situation has worsened since the pandemic. 2 in 5 workers now take less annual leave than they did before Covid hit [3].
Lack of downtime is leading to more burnout, exhaustion, and poor mental health
Even when people do use all their allotted annual leave, they struggle to disconnect from work.
More than half of survey respondents (57%) admitted to doing some work while supposedly on leave.
The three top reasons for this were:
- Wanting to avoid a backlog of work (29%)
- Worrying that they’d fall behind on their work (25%)
- Knowing that teams lacked capacity to cover work in their absence (19%).
In a perfect world, your team will already be making the most of all the leave they’re entitled to.
Apart from the mental health aspects, well-run businesses shouldn’t be operating on the bleeding edge. Annual leave should be factored in to the capacity needs of every team.
That said, problematic staff shortages, rising labour costs, and inflation, among other pressures, may mean you’ve inadvertently found that your team are among those not using all their holiday allowance.
If so, now is the ideal time to address the situation.
3 quick and easy ways to encourage your employees to use all their annual leave
1. Write clear holiday policies
Having a clear holiday policy that is written down lets you easily share important information to help your team manage their holiday allowance.
Make sure you include details about how many people can take time off at the same time, and how far in advance they need to book leave.
When holiday periods are approaching – for example bank holidays, school holidays, and Christmas – remind staff about your holiday policy and remind staff to think about booking leave ahead of time.
2. Simplify leave requests with an accessible staff holiday planner
If you don’t already have an easy-to-use, online holiday planner for the business, make this a priority.
Allowing people to use an online system to book their holiday will save time and headaches on manual admin.
With greater visibility of their leave allowance, it will also allow people to plan their time and understand when other team members are off.
3. Lead by example
Make sure your leadership and management teams are seen to take their annual leave.
By communicating openly about their leave, senior team members can help to set clear expectations for others.
Don’t do things by halves – be sure that leaders are vocal about setting boundaries and switching off communication channels during time off.
Get in touch
Our expert consultants are here to discuss a whole range of benefits and can help you put together a compelling and comprehensive benefits package tailored to your business.
Find out how we can help you build the right corporate benefits package for your business. Email [email protected] or call us on 0800 048 0150.
Please note
The information contained in this article is based on the opinion of Titan Wealth Planning and does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation for any investment or retirement strategy.
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