By Kevin Roth

“We switched up our vacation policy to 2 weeks instead of 3. With everyone working from home, the feeling is that people don’t need as much official vacation time.”

Think again!

Before the world changed, the words “work from home” were considered by many in management to be synonymous with “day off”.

I was personally guilty of that same thought process. When someone asked if they could work from home, I wrote that off as a 1/2 day of productivity at best.

Not anymore!

People are working harder than ever at home. The healthy emotional separation between home life and work life has been completely shattered, leading to one week of work taking double the emotional toll it used to.

Anyone else get to Wednesday and feel as mentally exhausted as you used to feel on Friday?

Do NOT make the mistake of changing around policies due to this new “flexibility” that your team has. If anything, do a better job of promoting vacation, giving extra “spot” days off in between long lapses in holidays. Push people to check out once in a while.

If you don’t take these proactive steps, your staff is going to associate the feeling of burnout with being at your company and seek out a healthier option.