The latest workplace perk: Cash bonuses for taking vacations

PHOTO REUTERS
PHOTO REUTERS

Summary

  • Some companies are using drastic measures to push employees to use their time off that has accrued during the pandemic

Many bosses have pleaded with employees for months to use their vacation time. Now some are adding incentives to coax workers into using their bedrock benefit.

With time off piling up for many employees in the pandemic, companies are getting creative in their efforts to persuade people to disconnect. Some employers, like Google, are offering a bonus vacation day for those who book time off now. Others are adding all-company holidays to the schedule. Even more unconventional is the approach of accounting and consulting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers: It will pay people to sign off.

PwC will begin offering U.S. staffers $250 for every full week of vacation booked, up to $1,000 a year. The plan could cost the firm millions, but the company has exhausted other attempts to get employees to disconnect, says Tim Ryan, PwC’s U.S. chairman.

“We want to show people we’re serious," Mr. Ryan says. “Economic incentives do have a way of helping."

The new corporate experiments reflect genuine concern among managers that burned-out employees have had few breaks over the past year, as many have worked almost continuously at home. Then there are the financial implications: Unused vacation time is considered a liability for most companies, something employers generally pay if employees leave an organization.

People have hesitated to take time off with travel or leisure opportunities limited, executives and employees say. In the remote era, workers nervous about their job security or standing with bosses may also resist going on vacation if few of their peers are, says Dane Jensen, CEO of Third Factor, an employee-coaching and leadership development firm.

“It’s like a prisoner’s dilemma: If I’m the only one to take vacation, what does that signal to the organization?" he says.

Some workers say that when they’re already at home and surrounded by family, they see less need to take a vacation.

Others worry, with the volume of work higher now, vacations might not even seem like vacations. One common worry Mr. Jensen says he hears: “Will I constantly be answering emails because there’s so much air traffic right now, 24/7, that I won’t even get the recovery?"

Third Factor recently added two companywide closings to its schedule, creating long weekends in hopes that everyone could log off at once. Others, including Citigroup and German tech giant SAP, have offered similar companywide days off, with an imperative that everybody, as much as possible, hit pause together.

Many organizations are asking employees to take time now, warning that it won’t be possible for everyone to take vacation later this year. At the Delaware insurance broker B&H Insurance, with about 30 employees, many staffers waited to use vacation until last December, leading to roughly double the number of time-off requests than usual, says Maria​ Clyde, the company’s HR director.

The company recently offered to pay employees for their excess rollover vacation time. It will now reset time-off balances based on an employee’s hire-date anniversary instead of the calendar year to alleviate future issues. “We can’t have people piling this stuff up," Ms. Clyde says.

Some companies say they’ll need even bolder experiments. PwC’s plan to pay employees to use their vacation benefits inspired intense debate among leaders, Mr. Ryan says. The firm considered sending some employees on company-paid trips to Hawaii, but didn’t want to create a competition among staffers.

Mr. Ryan says he and the company’s other partners have also tried to provide a “tone at the top," encouraging people to disconnect in recent years. He has shared with employees when he was taking time off, wanting to inspire them to do the same. It wasn’t enough, and the issue worsened in the pandemic, with vacation balances growing. “Frankly, it became too easy to work," Mr. Ryan says.

The company fared well financially in the pandemic, and wanted to reward employees, he says. In addition to its vacation perk, PwC will raise employee salaries and fund an expanded bonus pool at pre-pandemic levels. It also plans to provide employees with a “thank you bonus" this month equivalent to one week’s pay.

The company has committed to offering the vacation cash for at least the next year, and will likely continue it if it proves popular—and if it leads to more vacation requests, a figure the company will track. Mr. Ryan says he has learned over time that “100% physical attendance doesn’t equal 100% heart and mind, mental attendance," one reason he is pushing for employees to rejuvenate.

“I know when I take a vacation, I come back, I’m raring to go," he says.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.

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