thecareerbeat.com Blog

Ready for disposal: vacation?

Vacations are supposed to relieve anxiety, not cause it. Yet many people are stressing out about vacations — particularly about whether or not to take them.

Whether it’s the cost of traveling or the fear of losing your job once you’re gone, many Americans are deciding to scrap their vacations this year.

Recession Victim?

When asked how the recession has changed their 2009 vacation plans, 61% of Yahoo! HotJobs site visitors responded that they are not taking a vacation at all. An additional 7% said they are taking less vacation time this year.

The informal online poll, conducted in the second week of May with over 6,000 responses, includes participants who are unemployed.

Last year we saw a similar trend, when 51% of respondents planned to skip vacation.

“Vacations are usually the first thing to go when people feel job or economic pressure,” says Joe Robinson, a trainer in work-life balance and author of “Work to Live.” He continues, “We’re programmed to believe that free time is worthless, a frill to shove aside, but vacations are as important as watching your cholesterol or getting exercise.”

Rescue Plans

Experts have offered some great tips, including:

• Remind yourself: Vacation is not a luxury.
• Put aside some funds each week. Even $20 or $50 will help finance a small trip.
• Plan leisure activities near home.

Some employers are also forcing workers to take vacation this year, which can save the company money — especially through a forced shutdown, as at the holidays. It can also be good for workers, especially ones who might be hoarding vacation time as a hedge against possible unemployment. (An understandable impulse, to be sure!)

For more on how to safeguard your vacation, see the article “Vacations Take a Hit from Recession.”

Volunteering bonus: career advancement

‘Tis the season for giving. Giving of your time, in addition to your money. Volunteering can actually yield great benefits beyond feeling joy at helping others. You could be chopping carrots next to your future boss!

Check out this news feature I saw this morning about the topic. It offers one more good reason to consider volunteering during this season.

In the meantime, happy Thanksgiving!

To moonlight or not to moonlight?

The “moonlighting” question is gaining ground, as the troubled economy has many workers thinking about taking a second job to help with financial strains.

Adding a weekend gig could give you the economic boost you’ve been longing for. But it could also add more stress and exhaustion to your schedule.  Is the extra income worth it?

“Moonlighting: Pros and Cons of a Second Job” can help with the decision-making.  The article offers some good considerations, like: Could your second job be perceived by your employer to be a conflict of interest?

The conflict-of-interest issue is especially important for freelancers to consider before taking any assignments.  Selling your stuff on eBay, however, likely wouldn’t have that issue.  In my case that would be a recipe for too much stress.

Poll: Americans support paid vacation law

A new poll finds that more than two-thirds of Americans (69%) support a law that would guarantee paid vacations for American workers.

The poll, conducted by The Opinion Research Company for the Take Back Your Time organization, involved 1,002 Americans contacted by phone during the week of June 23.  You can see more results at the organization’s new site, www.right2vacation.org.

Take Back Your Time (TBYT) is pushing for a bill that would guarantee three weeks paid vacation for anyone who has worked at a job for a year or more.

“The United States is the only wealthy country without a paid vacation law,” said Joe Robinson, author of Work to Live and a leader in the TBYT campaign. “We’re the capital of burnout and it’s costing billions of dollars a year in medical bills and productivity losses.  We can change that with a law guaranteeing vacations to workers.”

Some companies are going much further by allowing workers to take as much vacation as needed — as long as they meet all their performance goals.  See more in this BusinessWeek article. I hope that trend catches on!

Burnout and recession fears are big threats to vacations this year, as I’ve reported earlier.

I’ll leave you with one interesting statistic from TBYT: According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American works one month (160 hours) more today than in 1976.

Working dads say parenting is toughest job

I’m a little late for Father’s Day, but I still think this survey is worth highlighting.

The majority of working dads (64%) — along with 71% of working moms — say that managing their family lives is more challenging than their careers. In addition, 55% of working fathers think their companies should do more to help them achieve a better work/life balance, according to an Adecco Workplace Insights survey.

“The perception that the work/life balancing act is mainly a female struggle no longer holds up in today’s workplace,” says Rich Thompson, vice president of training & development for Adecco Group North America.  ”As moms and dads continue more equally share responsibilities both at home and at the office, employers need to be mindful of this and ensure that they offer work/life benefits that are inclusive of both groups.”

For more, see the Adecco press release.

I am often amazed by my siblings, friends, and coworkers who are parents and working professionals — I don’t know how they do it!

Firms do more to aid work-life balance

Today’s SF Chronicle has an interesting article about some of the things companies are doing to retain good talent by fostering a better work-life balance for employees.

The main examples in the piece are two women who share a VP job at BEA Systems.  Job-sharing may not be that common (yet?), but similar perks offered by employers include flexible workdays and telecommuting.

My quibble with the article is that it explored few details of HOW these two women share such an important job. For example, they share an email account; how do they decide who replies?  How do they resolve disagreements between them about a management policy?  (I’m sure I’m not the only one with such questions.)

BTW, flex time was rated the “most important perk” by 53% of Yahoo! HotJobs visitors during a recent weekly poll.  The other choices were telecommuting (21%), tuition reimbursements (19%), and flexible spending accounts (7%).

Surfing the waves at lunch hour

I love the read the New York Times on Sunday.

Today’s paper had a few work-related articles worth noting…

“Working Life (High and Low)” highlights some of the dangers and risks for people who are independent contractors, as exemplified by the infuriating chain of events in Jean Capobianco’s tenure with FedEx. But there’s also an interesting profile of Patagonia and how it values work-life balance for its employees — some of whom go out surfing during their lunch hour.

There’s also a column about the deluge of email, which is a common frustration for many workers. Alas the piece doesn’t offer much in the way of advice, so you might want to look here. (In fact, I need to do some inbox-clearing today…)

And the big investigation of military “analysts” that are trotted out on TV news revealed some disconcerting tendencies among the men (usually retired officers) who have this gig.