Vacations make people happy, and happy employees are more productive employees. They also provide time to reboot your brain. According to an article in Scientific American, “downtime replenishes the brain’s stores of attention and motivation, encourages productivity and creativity, and is essential to both achieve our highest levels of performance and simply form stable memories in everyday life.”
How many great novels were written in a cubicle? Creativity is born from our surroundings. It takes life when we’re exposed to new sights, sounds and people. The term “daily routine” means we live our lives on a schedule, which provides little time for our brains to see anything more than what’s in front of us.
When individuals don’t get quality sleep, we put ourselves at risk of getting sick more easily, and the long-term effects can increase our risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Vacations allow employees to break this routine, resulting in more peaceful sleep.
A happy home life will positively impact workplace production. Vacations and reconnecting with family, friends and loved ones will help employees feel emotionally fulfilled — a leading requirement of good health.
Being in work mode all the time exhausts the focus circuits in the brain, which drains mental energy, reduces self-control ignites stress. Rest and vacation relieve our minds of constant focus, reduces stress and leads to increased creative problem solving, better decision making and better collaboration and teamwork.
Chronic disease accounts for 75% of the nation’s $2.7 trillion in annual spending for medical care. Just ONE vacation a year can reduce the risk of heart disease by a staggering 30% in men and 50% in women.
Top employees are hard to find, and sometimes even harder to keep. Millennials especially have a different range of criteria than other age groups and consider a company’s view on employee vacation of utmost importance.
