More than four in 10 (46%) US employees don’t use all of the annual leave that’s offered to them – including holidays, appointments, and minor illnesses – according to the Paw Research Centre.

Of these employees, 49% shared that their reluctance to book time off stems from the worry of falling behind with responsibilities, and 43% stated that they feel bad for their co-workers who would have to pick up the extra work.

However, not taking adequate leave can cause employees to feel heightened stress with lower productivity levels, which can often cause burnout and unplanned absences.

But, how can businesses combat this, and what should HR leaders do to support both employees and employers?

In an exclusive conversation with Kayla Velnoskey, Senior Principal Researcher in Gartner’s HR practice, UNLEASH explores.

Minimizing disruption caused by vacation or sick leave

Before we get started, ask yourself the question: Within your business, are there any roles that are single points of failure, where when one person is on annual leave, the workplace, or at least, the people around them, are significantly disrupted?

For Gartner’s Velnoskey, this is a key question that highlights whether businesses need to think about this issue with greater redundancy, or whether better systems need to be implemented to transfer tasks between employees.

“Ensuring all bases are covered is not only important for the working employees, but for the person on leave, too,” Velnoskey begins.

Moving beyond this point, Velnoskey highlights that HR leaders should identify roles that experience high levels of stress or that face undue burdens.

If these are present within a business, leaders must identify how to alleviate these pressures, for example, by splitting up tasks, improving processes, or creating greater redundancy.

“I think it’s really important to remember that wellbeing is not just programs that we offer to people when they’re already experiencing stress or need help,” Velnoskey adds.

“It’s important to think about how we design work to better support wellbeing. Wellbeing is not just giving employees band aids when they’re hurt – it’s about actually preventing the problem in the first place.

“Whenever there are a lot of employees coming in and out of availability, it tends to be a time period that can put pressure on employee wellbeing.

“So if we don’t have the right systems in place to handle those vacations, we can definitely see more stress on work during that time period.”

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