Many business owners make it a point to give their employees paid time off every year. This practice can help minimize burnout and show employees that they are valued. Unfortunately, two out of three employees think about work during paid time off, which defeats the entire purpose of the perk. Offering paid time off incentives may help your employees fully enjoy their time in the sun. Here are a few suggestions for improving time off for your team.
Book Specific Activities
If you’re serious about helping their employees enjoy their paid time off, you may want to provide them with fully paid vacation packages. For example, you might send your employees on a cruise every year. That way you can plan excursions for them that will keep them busy and help them forget about work for a little while.
Provide Them With Vacation-Friendly Items
Giving your employees summer vacation kits can go a long way toward helping them relax and enjoy their time away from work. Here are some great suggestions for vacation-friendly custom beach products you can give your employees:
- Sunglasses: A quality pair of shades will get your employees excited about their upcoming summer adventures. Sunglasses can also help protect the eyes from sun damage, so they’re a practical gift as well.
- Sun hats: A floppy or wide-brimmed sunhat is the perfect employee gift to encourage a laid-back vacation. Just looking at a sun hat stirs up thoughts of lounging on the beach without a care in the world.
- Beach Towels: You can’t go wrong by gifting your employees with colorful beach towels. Before they know it, they’ll feel relaxed and worry-free while they’re lying on a beach towel in the sun.
- Coolers: Your employees are more likely to get out and enjoy Mother Nature when you provide them with coolers to keep their drinks cold. Don’t forget to add your brand name and logo so you can get some free advertising out of it!
- Speakers: Could there be anything more fun than listening to your favorite tunes while hiking or fishing? We don’t think so. Provide your employees with branded speakers and other custom fishing products, and they’re guaranteed to have a good time during their paid time off.
When you give your employees paid time off incentives such as these, you’re essentially giving them permission to forget their professional responsibilities for the time being. Sometimes that’s all people need to put work on the back burner for a week or so.
Have Another Team Member Handle Responsibilities Temporarily
To make sure paid time off relaxation is achieved, consider splitting your employees into teams of two. When one person in the team is gone on vacation, the other one takes care of all their professional emails and responsibilities. Then, the benefiting employee returns the favor when the other member of the team leaves on vacation. This is an effective way to make sure every employee is able to fully enjoy his or her paid time off.
Encourage Employees to Create an Out-of-Office Reply
If employees don’t create out-of-office replies when they leave on vacation, they’re basically inviting people to keep contacting them for work-related needs. Before any member of your team leaves on vacation, encourage them to create an out-of-office reply. You can even set up their emails to temporarily forward to another team member. Click HERE to see a how-to guide on setting up an automatic vacation responder by HellotTech.
Encourage Team Members to Plan Vacations in Advance
Often, employees are unable to fully relax on vacation because they didn’t provide their employer with sufficient notice. To make sure this doesn’t happen, encourage employees to plan vacations early. That way they will have enough time to prep their back-up person for success.
Employees should also be encouraged to submit tentative vacation plans to you as their employer before finalizing those plans. That way adjustments can be made if multiple employees are unknowingly planning vacations at the same time. Preparation and communication are key to ensuring that every employee has the best possible vacation experience.
Set Your Employees up for Vacation Bliss
These are just a few of the top ways you can set your employees up to have relaxing, stress-free vacations without thinking about work. At Vox MG, we manufacture and source branded products that are perfect for paid time off incentives. Contact us to learn more.
