Leading the Pause: How Great Leaders Encourage Time-Off for Professional Fulfillment

As summer arrives, many employees begin thinking about taking a well-earned break. Yet despite growing evidence that time away from work improves wellbeing, reduces burnout, and increases professional fulfillment, many people still hesitate to use their vacation days. The stigma around taking time off work is driven by guilt and fear of false perception about job commitment.

But here is the insight: the question is not whether employees need time off, it is whether leaders are creating cultures where people feel comfortable taking it.

Great leaders recognize that rest is not a reward for performance — it is a prerequisite for it. They shift mindsets by sharing benefits of disconnecting for full rejuvenation and make sure managers in their teams do not punish nor look down upon those applying for time off work.

One way to change mentality around vacation time is to implement a “Use it or Lose it” Policy to encourage employees to utilize their allotted Paid Time Off (PTO). Putting a cap on the number of days carried forward would entice employees to take their PTO within the current year; so is discouraging the habit of time-off trading – a common practice in retail and hospitality industries.

Abiding by an “Out of Sight, Out of Work” business practice is key in changing mentality around PTO. Employees on PTO should not be disturbed; their time away should be respected. That means no phone calls and no e-mails while they are on their time off work. If they need to be informed about a particular topic, the correspondence should be saved and communicated to them upon their return to bring them up to speed.

Leaders should also avoid piling work for employees returning from PTO and instead, allow them time to ease back into work. Solid workload distribution and task delegation would help keep work under control while some of the responsible team members are away.

Allowing flexibility in business trips, within reason, is a good strategy to consider. Employees should be permitted to add a day or two from their PTO to their business trip and stay longer in a country or city they are traveling to should they want to. Not only would this give employees a chance to explore places they might have never traveled to had it not been for the business trip, but it could be a good opportunity for them to bond with employees or customers where the business trip is taking them.

Finally, leaders need to walk the talk and take PTO themselves! They need to set the tone to make the mind-shift stick. When employees see their leaders living the values, they will reciprocate and the effects are will be replicated throughout the organization.

Leaders who rest have teams that thrive. The most successful organizations understand that sustainable performance is not built by working harder without pause—it is built by creating space to recover, recharge, and thrive.