Why Managers Should Take Vacation and Encourage Their Teams to Do the Same

Skipping vacation does not automatically help your company. People need time away, and a manager who never disconnects can make the team think they should do the same.

I used to see unused vacation treated like a badge of commitment. It can look dedicated from the outside. It can also hide a workload that has become unsustainable.

Time away is part of a workable job

You cannot calculate the exact productivity cost of a week off for every employee. Fatigue can affect attention, patience, and judgment. Time away gives people a chance to rest.

Vacation is not a substitute for fixing a broken workload. If someone returns to the same impossible backlog, the underlying issue remains. Plan for coverage and decide what can wait.

Your behavior sets an example

Employees notice whether managers take time off and whether they keep checking messages while away. If you want people to use vacation, make the process workable. Identify coverage, clarify which decisions can wait, and avoid rewarding someone for being available every hour.

If a role requires on-call coverage, explain that expectation and share the load fairly.

Make a real plan

Pick dates and put them on the calendar. Before you leave, tell the team who owns each open decision and where to find the information they need. Handle urgent handoffs. Do not turn every task into an emergency because you will be away.

When people return, ask whether the coverage plan worked. If a decision stalled or colleagues were overloaded, improve the process before the next absence.

If one person cannot take time off without work piling up, look for a staffing gap, an undocumented process, or too much authority in one place. Do not praise that fragility as dedication. Fix it.

A manager's job is to build a team that can do good work and keep doing it. Taking vacation is one part of that. So is respecting your team's time when they take theirs.