50% of Americans are scared to take paid time off this year

Summer is a time when the livin’ is easy and families across the United States take time off of work and go on a holiday. This may seem like a scenario from the past because a considerable number of workers in the U.S. are forgoing the concept of vacation and instead staying at their desk performing the duties of their job.

A new survey entitled “Overwhelmed America” by the U.S. Travel Association and GfK, a market research firm, discovered that 41 percent of American workers are not planning on using any of their paid time off, otherwise known as PTO, this year even though it’s part of their compensation package.

Although most workers understand the benefits of PTO – a majority say it helps them relax and recharge, do what they enjoy and improve their productivity when returning to the job – employees are simply not doing it.

There are a variety of reasons why these workers are refusing to take a break away from work. Some of these excuses include the trepidation of returning to a mountain of work, the belief that no one else can do their job, a lack of funds to take a vacation and to show management that they are entirely dedicated to both the company and their occupation.

“We found that people have this whole busyness as a badge of honor thing,” said Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, in an interview with the Washington Post. “We’re becoming a nation of work martyrs. People really wear it on their sleeves how they don’t take time off. Everyone around the world looks at Americans like we’re crazy.”

An interesting part of the study is that senior executives concurred that it was important for their staff members to take a vacation and have a break, but one-third conceded that they rarely or never talk about PTO with their workforce.

“And two-thirds of the employers say, ‘I never hear my supervisor ever talk about the importance of vacation. Everyone thinks taking vacation is the right thing to do, yet it’s not something that’s spoken about in the workplace,” Dow added.

The purpose of the report is to launch a national conversation in order to identify potential physical and mental health problems that workers could very well experience from being burned out due to a lack of time off.

In the meantime, Dow has promised a $500 bonus to any of his 60 employees if they take their full paid vacation this year. His labor force enjoys three paid weeks off each year as well as days prior to and following holidays.

The online survey was conducted with 1,303 full-time American workers and managers between Jun. 20 and 30. It contains a margin of error of +/-2.71 percent for workers and +/- 6.39 percent for managers.