Americans are notorious for neglecting to take vacation time-and small business owners may be the worst of the lot. But skipping vacations can have a high cost for your company and your health.
If you find it difficult to take time away from your job, you’re certainly not the only one: a recent Harris Interactive poll for Expedia.com, an Internet travel booking service, found that 35% of all American workers scrap some or all of their vacation days each year-that’s a total of more than more than 50 million people working themselves right past some well-deserved time off.
We understand that taking time off isn’t as easy as grabbing a last-minute cheap seat on a flight to Vegas. Fitness clubs need full-time attention, and if your club doesn’t yet have the resources to make full-time staff a possibility, most of that full-time attention is going to come from you. And most of us are in this industry because we’re passionate about what we do-getting up and going to work every day is fun, so why would we need time off? Despite these admittedly compelling factors, though, it’s a mistake to work through your vacation time year after year-and it’s a mistake that can cost you in the long run.
Financial Benefits
Vacation time can be an important element in recharging your body and brain, which can benefit your club. Many business owners come up with their best ideas and solutions to plaguing problems when they get a little mental space-Hyperion software CEO?Geoffrey Sullivan came up with his company’s successful hybrid automobile incentive program while trotting on horseback. That’s why it’s not surprising that most companies report employees have improved job performance after a vacation.
Taking time away from the office doesn’t just energize your mind, it also improves your overall attitude. Go too long without taking time off, and you’re likely to become snappy and short-tempered with your staff, take longer to get through your routine day-to-day tasks and feel more frustrated at the end of those inevitable long days. A study from the Wisconsin Medical Journal found that women who took regular vacations reported less stress, depression and exhaustion than women who bypassed their vacations for work.
Health Benefits
Believe it or not, taking a vacation can be as beneficial to your overall health as regular exercise. Taking an annual vacation can reduce the risk of heart attacks in men by 30% and in women by as much as 50%. Men who skipped vacations for 5 years had the highest rate of death and incidence of death in a study done by New York State University. And middle-aged women who put six years or more between vacations were 8 times more likely to have a heart attack or heart disease, according to one 2006 study. It’s not always easy to plan time away from your club, but if you want to espouse the healthy lifestyle your club offers and maximize your club’s bottom line, taking time off is nothing short of a necessity. That doesn’t mean you need to throw your club to the wolves and book a month on a yacht with no phone service, but it does mean making time away from your club is important. (For some ideas on how to do just that, see the box on the right.) Ultimately, your club will be as healthy and prosperous as its owner-which is the best reason we can think of for making time off one of your priorities for 2008.
