It's not too late to take a vacation! (It's even good for your career)

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As summer comes to a close, many Americans find themselves lamenting the vacations they didn't take. In the latest bit of research suggesting U.S. workers work too much, the U.S. Travel Association said last week that 40 percent of Americans don't use all their vacation days, claiming "Work Martyr" syndrome was at least partly to blame. A fake story in The Onion last week offered another explanation in a way only irony can: "Report: Average American Worker Replaced Within 10 Minutes Of Taking Vacation."

But what if both points of view are wrong? What if taking vacations actually helps you get ahead at work? One global corporation says it has internal research proving exactly that.

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At audit firm EY (formerly Ernst & Young), vacation is serious business. The company says extensive data analysis conducted internally shows that employees who use more vacation days end up with better performance reviews.

"We find that taking vacation is a positive predictor of performance the following year," said Maryella Gockel, whose title is “Flexibility Strategy Leader.” The firm shuns the well-worn phrase, work-life balance. "It's also a predictor of how long (employees) stay with the firm."

How much do vacation days help performance (and, by extension, bonuses and advancement)? Dramatically, she says.

"In the US and Canada ... for each 10 vacation hours a person took, we found on average that performance reviews were 8 percent higher," Gockel said. Vacation also helped slow down employee turnover, she said, with every 40 hours of free time extending employees' stay at the company by another 8 months.

The finding might be depressing to the aforementioned "work martyrs," but offers a lesson to both workers and employers alike: Working too much isn't good for your family, or your health, and it probably isn't even good for your career. Taking time away from the workplace can help you truly enjoy the time you spend with your family. Some workers sight not being able to afford to take a vacation as the reason why they don't. This is troubling because there is now such a large market for the prospective holiday-taker that they are extremely varied in its price range. An example of this is the fly cruise deals now available, which help lower the price of a holiday that some may dismiss as being unattainable. There are loads of other examples though, it just depends on where you want to go on holiday though. For example, you might be thinking that you actually might like to visit somewhere in Europe, if this is something that you are thinking of though then you could easily get a ferry from a company like ferryu to help you travel there. So if you are thinking of going on a vacation then there are plenty of options for you. If you want to splurge a little when it comes to how you'll be travelling to somewhere, then why don't you check out a company like NetJets, which allows you to have a more luxurious mode of travel when you want it.

Gockel says she understands the plight of work martyrs. She describes herself as "a recovering accountant," who's been with EY for 34 years, and knows the pressures of high-performance environments where employee time is billed by the hour. She thinks the spread of smartphones and other always-on technology has made making good decisions about work and time off even more challenging today.

"Part of it is the challenge around technology. It enables us to do crazy things we weren't able to do 20 years ago," she said. "We have to figure out ways to manage this new way of working."

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Anne Weisberg of the Families and Work Institute, which prefers the phrase “work-life fit,” said there is precious little research connecting vacation time and higher performance, which is why she cheered EY for offering a bit of a peek at its internal data.

"We all know this intuitively, that we are not performing at our best when exhausted," she said. "Taking a break can bring you back and increase your performance. People on some level understand that. The question is what is the tone being set by the team leader?"

There are plenty of studies describing the value of taking breaks on cognitive performance, but studies measuring the value of vacation towards workplace performance are not easy to find. Measuring performance on its own is a challenge. Still, Wesiberg's colleague Ken Matos found a few bits or research that hint at this same EY effect.

Unplanned absenteeism is one way psychologists measure work performance. Workers who are out sick, or just take off for personal reasons, clearly aren't performing well. A study published in Psychology & Health involving blue-collars workers at an industrial plant in Israel conducted in 2001 found that levels of absenteeism in workers fell for four weeks following a vacation. Worthy of note: pre-vacation absenteeism levels for health reasons return after 4-6 weeks, suggesting a "holiday glow" lasts only a month or so.

“From a practical standpoint, absenteeism represents a significant cost and source of disruption to the organization,” the report concluded. “To decrease absenteeism, the organization should try to regulate vacations according to stressful periods.”

Matos points out that absenteeism for “o`xther” reasons, such as chores needed to be accomplished during work hours, was reduced beyond six weeks, implying that the positive effects of vacations can linger for a long time.

Suggesting, again, to managers and workers alike that vacations are good for the company. But how does a firm like EY handle the creeping culture of work martyrs?

"We message around the fact that people should take vacations," she said. "We have a resource and referral program that helps people think about what vacations they can take...It even helps them find good travel deals. We recently (published) a story talking about how to take an unplugged vacation."

Because most EY workers rotate through assignments, they don't have permanent manager typical for many workers. So human resource managers stay in touch with workers and flag those who are not taking all their vacation time, she said.

But most important: The firm encourages a culture of delegation, she said. It's impossible to take vacations unless workers are able to hand off duties to someone else. And delegation also has another positive effect for workers and the firm.

"When you delegate to others, other people grow while you are gone," Gockel said. “Vacations can be a very important opportunity for others on the team.”

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