Whether you took time off over the winter holidays or are rolling over several days for a mini staycation this spring, vacation time is an essential part of work-life balance.
Vacation is a time for restoring your mind. It’s also a tool for flexing your negotiation skills, arranging a new job’s start date and recharging your career trajectory. Here are three ways to leverage it for your benefit.
1. Negotiate additional paid time off — it’s easy. When I worked in recruiting, nearly every time a candidate asked for additional paid time off, they got it approved.
Here’s why. The approval process is relatively quick and simple for this particular topic, at least in the organizations where I worked. Unlike salary approvals and sign-on bonuses, which often required approvals from the hiring manager, department head and group’s financial lead, personal time was usually one-stop shopping with the hiring manager only.
Tactfully state your case and ask in a professional manner. That puts the recruiter in the position to communicate to the hiring manager on your behalf. The hiring manager often says, “Yes, that’s not a problem.”
Not only is this a win for the new hire, it’s a way for them to practice negotiating as well. Although asking for paid time off may not feel like negotiating a higher salary, at the end of the day it’s all good. While it’s not necessarily more money in the bank, it’s more time in the personal bank.
2. Make planned vacations nonnegotiable. Also, during the interview process, candidates were often reluctant to tell me about an upcoming vacation, thinking it would potentially hinder their candidacy. Au contraire!
You don’t need to explain the reason you’re taking off other than saying something’s been planned for months, but it’s important to address this regarding your start date and be transparent in the process.
In all of my years of recruiting, not once did I see a planned vacation result in a hiring manager changing their mind about extending an offer. If anything, they often felt it was good that the new hire would start the job with a refreshed mindset.
The same applies for employees, too. Sure, you shouldn’t book a two-week vacation during a busy season, but as long as the time gets approved during downtime, consider a manager’s perspective of preferring that you take a break to rejuvenate rather than work endless hours in an unproductive cycle.
3. Remember to unwind and unplug. Yes, modern technology can keep you working 24/7. However, this is one situation where you can — and should — unplug. Once you train your backup contact at the office and turn on that out-of-office response, leverage the rare opportunity to relax and focus on your loved ones. It’ll do your mind, body and career some good.
There’s the performance aspect at work, too. An Ernst & Young study conducted in 2006 found that additional paid time off resulted in boosted performance ratings.
So, the next time you’re trying to be a martyr and getting burned out in the process, take a deep breath and those much-needed days, even if it means you’ll be sitting in your backyard listening to the radio. The study found that, for each additional 10 hours of vacation employees clocked, their performance reviews rose 8 percent the following year.
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3 Steps to Get Approved for That Much-Needed Vacation originally appeared on usnews.com