Americans are famous for never taking a break. The average American worker took fewer than 12 vacation days in 2021 — six fewer than the global average — according to Expedia’s latest vacation deprivation study of 14,500 working adults in 16 countries.
However, an overwhelming majority of workers say that vacations make them feel more patient and motivated when they return to work.
With the summer travel season underway, CNBC Make It spoke with CEOs, VPs, and senior executives with super-busy schedules about how they hack their PTO, from planning it in advance to taking it off. from networking, to what they include (and don’t include) in their out-of-office messages.
Here’s how to maximize your PTO as a corporate VIP.
Plan your vacation in January
Apparently, returning to work after winter break is a great time to start planning your next vacation.
Kim Jones, PwC’s talent strategist and people experience leader, spends every January thinking about her travel plans for the rest of the year. She even keeps a spreadsheet and breaks her annual PTO into quarters.
You don’t have to file your PTO requests right away, but it’s good mental practice to pace yourself so you don’t end up with three weeks to use in December.
Be intentional, or “next thing you know, it’s been four, five or six months and you haven’t taken a day off,” says Jones. “There will always be things to do and we are always busy.”
It can be a great morale booster, she adds: “Having a scheduled break really helps with your mindset when you’re going through those tough times.”
Make an appointment before and after the holidays
Worried about falling behind while you’re out and about? Courtney McMillian, head of total rewards at Twitter, preempts this by booking her vacations with business meetings.
A week or two before going out, she has a team meeting to “give them a red light, green light or yellow light for whatever project they’re working on so they can move forward in my absence”.
Once she returns, she also schedules a meeting with her management team.
“It helps me figure out what’s at the top of the priority list that needs my attention,” she says.
Do not include your phone number in OOO
About 63% of American workers put their phone number in their OOO message or give it to colleagues or customers, according to Expedia.
But Microsoft’s president of North America doesn’t either — Deb Cupp says her OOO expressly says she’s not available via email or phone.
“I was like, ‘If there’s an emergency, you can reach me on the phone,'” says Cupp. “I stopped doing that because everyone’s definition of an emergency is different.”
She thinks being unavailable can be a good thing: Other colleagues will usually open up and get creative to solve the problem. “You’d be surprised what settles into itself when you get off the road,” says Cupp. “It’s also good to help people open up these opportunities.”
Use Slack to disconnect from work
Slack is great for getting work done in a more flexible way, but it can also make it harder to disconnect. Rod Garcia, Slack’s senior director of engineering, has a few tricks for using the platform to improve his vacations.
First, instead of a traditional OOO email, Garcia updates his status two weeks in advance with details about his upcoming vacation. This way, his note will appear wherever his name appears in channels and direct messages.
When messages arrive right before his vacation time, he’ll set up Slack to remind him to follow up when he gets back. And when he’s off the clock, Garcia will update his status icon, mark the date he’ll be back and set a do-not-disturb schedule so he doesn’t have to ping his phone.
Get off social media while you’re at it
Social media can be their distraction during the holidays. That’s why Eric Han, TikTok’s US head of security, tries to stay off the devices while traveling.
He recommends an app called Freedom to restrict access to certain sites and apps. Other times, he will delete social media like Reddit, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok from his phone.
And in extreme cases, he will leave his phone locked in his hotel room. A travel hobby also helps: “I also take a lot of pictures when I travel, so I can focus on that,” he adds.
Don’t read emails you get on vacation, even after you’re back
Taking a break from work is great, but returning to a full mailbox is not.
This year, Desiree Pascual, chief people officer at Headspace Health, decided to save herself the trouble and relay in her message to OOO: “I am currently on vacation and will not review any emails that come in while I am away, including after I return.”
Instead, she expects that anyone who really needs to reach out will do so after she returns.
Maintain boundaries when people interrupt your PTO
Your ability to disconnect from work really depends on whether your coworkers and boss will let you do it. If coworkers are interrupting your vacations, you may need to set and re-emphasize those boundaries.
Try doing this in your OOO message, suggests Dr. Geeta Nayya, chief medical officer at Salesforce. Her OOO will state, “If this is an emergency (ie someone is bleeding or chest pains) please call me on my cell.”
“This out-of-office is meant to be the talk of the page,” she says. “And if it’s not a true medical emergency, it’s a nice way to say, ‘if you can call someone else on the team, I invite you to do so.’
Keep the return date to yourself
Give yourself time to get back into work mode, says Melanie Fish, head of global PR for Expedia Group Brands
Fish says he likes to keep it kind of a secret that I’m back for as long as possible. active until I find out what happened last week.”
As she sees it, “just because I’m back in the office at 8 a.m. on Monday after a few days off doesn’t mean people need me at 8 a.m. on Monday.”
