A recent report found six in ten employees did not take all their annual leave entitlement due to pressure from management. But in my experience it’s managers who don’t take their full annual leave entitlement. This sets a very bad example and can creat an expectation that the truly committed member of staff does not take their full annual leave entitlement.

I have experienced to very different approaches to annual leave by Directors I have worked for. Dave had a young family and always took a 3 week holiday in the summer. His rational for this was that in the past he had found that if he took a 2 week holiday people postponed making decision on the bases he would be back next week. So on his return he was presented with a queue of people wanting answers to issues which had gone from important to important and urgent. Whereas if every one was aware he was unavailable for 3 weeks they decided their issues couldn’t wait that long and sorted them out themselves.

Stuart was the complete opposite. His family was older and he frequently stated he didn’t like holidays. He would book 2 weeks camping in Wales.For the first week he would ring up the office asking to speak to which ever assistant director was in and ask if there were any problems. He would then casually enquire where colleagues were and what they were doing, basically a detailed briefing on anything and everything that had taken place since he left the office on Friday evening.

Monday morning of the second week he would appear back in the office having left the family in Wales. When asked how come he was back when he had another week he would say either he got bored or that there was so much to do he felt he had to come back. A week was in any case enough for him. In subsequent conversations it became clear that the real reason for returning early was that he didn’t trust the Chief Executive and the chair of the board not to make decisions in his absence that would be detrimental to his directorate. I also think he didn’t want members of his Senior management team having too much direct contact with the Chief Executive or the chair.

We all need regular breaks to maintain our health and wellbeing. Senior managers set the tone if they don’t take their full annual leave then this becomes the expectation for the rest. Just to reinforce that message senior managers don’t carry over their unused leave and don’t expect their managers to.