What portion of your company's leave allocation is unused each year?
I'd be very surprised if you knew this figure. This is not a metric most executives carry in their heads. It leads to 2 other questions.
Could you find out?
Even if you are a small company leave records should be maintained and the answer should be available. If you don't know, ask the person who is responsible for leave and check they can find the answer.
The more interesting question is; what does it mean?
Suppose you discovered that most of your company's leave allocation was not used every year.
Is that good?
It means that people are working.
Is it bad?
It means that people are taking time off to recover.
Is it irrelevant?
Leave is a personal decision and the manager shouldn't worry about it.
I'd like to encourage you to worry about it.
Being in the chase and challenge of a growing energized company is thrilling. At times, we will work long hours and weekends. However for every time we dip into our mental, emotional and physical reserves we need down time to replenish.
Time to recover and recuperate is essential to our ability to maintain energy, motivation and ultimately achievement. Good managers track those recovery cycles and ensure that their staff can get away from the stress of office.
It is no badge of honour to be checking your email on vacation. It is no achievement to not have holidays. It is not the sign of a good manager to have large portion of unused annual leave in their organisations.
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