At US investment bank Jefferies, the board of directors feared a crisis may be brewing every time chief executive Rich Handler visited Greece in August. Handler was hunkered down on a yacht there in 2007, when Wall Street was unwinding leverage in a precursor to the following year’s financial crisis, and again in 2011 in the early stages of the euro-zone debt crisis.
A decade later he was on holiday in the Turks and Caicos Islands when he received a worried call from his head of equity trading about Jefferies’ exposure to what was then an obscure family office called Archegos.
“I said, ‘I’m going to get a spicy margarita and I’m going to be back in about 15 minutes,’” says Handler. “‘When I come back, just give me one number and it’s the amount of money we lost. I want the whole thing down by the time I come back.’”
Jefferies escaped from Archegos’ collapse with a modest $40 million (€37 million) loss while other banks were left on the hook for billions of dollars.
“Sometimes when you’re on vacation, there’s a clarity ... because you’re not so close to the situation,” says Handler. “Our team did all the hard work by correctly identifying the issue and quickly elevating it. You can just look at the big picture and make the decision.”
Many chief executives and senior directors will have to make a similar call this summer on just how far to cut the cord with the office during their annual leave. Some advisers argue that only a complete detachment and handover to the team can lead to a restful break, while others firmly believe some work communication and involvement are unavoidable.
The benefits of a proper rest are clear: numerous studies link a well-rested mind and body to greater creativity, higher productivity and an all-round better mood. Hard work has psychophysiological costs – stress, fatigue, crankiness – which, if not corrected with adequate recovery, can start to affect performance.
But with remote work now the norm for large numbers of professionals, and connectivity at near constant levels, for many senior people in business, switching off completely is unrealistic.
The mindset that says, ‘My team can’t function without me’ – how disrespectful is that! Do you really want me to believe you’ve hired people who aren’t capable of rising to their role?
It is “naive” to think a senior executive can go completely off grid for a fortnight, argues Zena Everett, author of The Crazy Busy Cure. “Obviously, it’s not good for people to be checking their phones all the time. But if sending a quick WhatsApp is going to help them switch off for the rest of the day, then fine, do it.”
Executive coach and author Andy Brown has a different view: that quick email check might seem harmless, but it acts like grit in your shoe, he says. “It’s not much but it still irritates.”
Social norms are a big factor in the debate. Employees in France and Hong Kong think little of taking nearly a month off every summer, while more than half of Americans struggle to use up even the standard 12 days allotted to them each year, according to new research by travel firm Expedia into “vacation deprivation”.
Company-specific cultures can compound these wider norms, says Brown. But much comes down to the individual. People who struggle the most are the “buck stops with me” kind of bosses, for whom a holiday can almost feel like a “dereliction of duty”, he says.
Leaders of small businesses can be especially prone to this, says James Howard-Vyse, head of a small London-based creative agency Wizzard. “As an entrepreneur, I very much feel it’s my role to make it all work, which means you often fall to the bottom of the pile, including with holidays.”
Excessive empathy – or guilt – can be another barrier, say experts.
Behaviour such as dialling into team calls or picking up small tasks during annual leave often comes from a good place, says Janet Harvey, an executive coach and author of From Tension to Transformation, but it is ill-advised. Not only is the executive deprived of the rest they need, but the act of checking in can leave their teams feeling distrusted and micromanaged.
“The mindset that says, ‘My team can’t function without me’ – how disrespectful is that! Do you really want me to believe you’ve hired people who aren’t capable of rising to their role?” she says.
Set a good example by taking leave yourself and don’t make staff feel guilty about taking annual leave
Jörg Schnelle, chief commercial officer of German fintech Riverty, admits he likes the feeling of being “always reachable” and logging in helps him relax.
“It’s not like I need to see my phone all the time. I was in the jungle in Thailand for two or three days without any connection, and I survived ... But I think if checking in doesn’t stress you, it’s completely okay.”
Whatever executives decide, good forward planning is necessary, says Amanda Arrowsmith, director of people and transformation at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Calendars and workflows should be adjusted in advance and managers should provide clear expectations around when their colleagues and teams should contact them – and when they shouldn’t.
CIPD’s guidance to bosses tells them to “set a good example by taking leave yourself” and “don’t make staff feel guilty about taking annual leave”.
Bruce Fecheyr-Lippens, chief people officer at HR solutions provider SD Worx, says managers should stop all notifications. “Whether it’s Teams or Outlook or whatever, just take it off. Otherwise, you know, if you’re using your computer for leisure, it’s always just that one trigger away, which is fatal.”
His other tips include not sending rushed messages on email (a one-liner can cause as much “panic and stress” as it seeks to solve); activating out-of-office with clear instructions on whom to contact in your absence; and blocking out half a day on your return to sort through your inbox.
Jillian Janaczek, chief executive of PR agency Porter Novelli, says she is “really very intentional and deliberate about setting expectations for myself in terms of self-care”, when working and during time off. Her nine-member operating committee keeps a group calendar to clarify “where we all are, who’s out and who’s covering”. That way, if a crisis erupts, it is clear who needs to step in.
Even so, her recent holiday – the first proper break she had taken since she started the job about a year ago – was punctuated by a companywide volunteering day and an unavoidable morning conference call, which she dealt with by informing her family well in advance.
“My family knows I work a lot, but they never feel like I’ve missed anything because I always try to the best of my ability to be very clear about where I am and what I’m doing,” she says.
When Wizzard’s Howard-Vyse takes his first two-week holiday for years this month, he intends to take notifications off his phone and inform his clients he will be away.
“Putting on out-of-office feels like quite a big move; almost like admitting defeat,” he says. “But, actually, telling clients that there are other members of the team who are just as qualified to help them is probably no bad thing.” – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024
- Sign up for Business push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Find The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Our Inside Business podcast is published weekly – Find the latest episode here
