Pioneer Press – June 8, 2007

After years of hard work and no vacation, Brian Rudolph this week finally activated the out-of-office auto-reply on his e-mail and headed to Mexico.

He’s taking a weeklong trip – his first since a honeymoon 11 years ago – in part because his employer is picking up the tab. Rudolph, who recruits executives for consumer-products companies, jetted off Friday with his family to a resort in Puerto Vallarta.

As summer vacation season swings into gear with its promise of reprieves from morning commutes and that gum-chewing co-worker in the next cubicle, employers are keeping watch. In a twist, businesses are stepping up efforts to ensure workers get away from it all.

Some cite productivity issues – all work and no play makes Jill a less-efficient worker. Others see accrued vacation time as a ticking financial time bomb that turns paid days off into another payout rather than a perk that helps workers keep their edge.

Americans are relatively poor vacation takers. Despite receiving less vacation time on average than their counterparts in other countries, more than a third of U.S. workers will fail to use all of the time coming to them this year, leaving an average of three days on the table, according to a Harris Interactive/Expedia.com poll taken earlier this year.

“Some hardly use any at all,” said Gregg Lemley, an attorney in St. Louis who advises clients on vacation policies. “Either they’re too busy or they think it will be held against them if they take it. Maybe they’re banking it up as a retirement benefit.”

Meanwhile, some vacation slackers are getting the boss’s attentions.

Rudolph says skipping vacations was a matter of getting ahead. The 40-year-old switched careers and still was trying to establish himself in the recruiting field when the economy started tanking. He found it took a lot of time to get the leads to generate the billings needed to be a success.

Last year, he was the top biller at his company and won the weeklong Mexico vacation that finally lured him from the office. He had some hesitation. “I’m a hyperactive guy, and I just do not know if I have the ability to relax,” he admitted. “That’s part of my personality.”

Rudolph had little choice but to pack up and head out. “We didn’t give him an opportunity to take the money,” said Kurt Rakos, a partner at McKinley Group, the executive-recruiting firm in Minnetonka where Rudolph works. “I guarantee you, he would have taken the money.”

Companies looking to encourage employees to take vacations are providing an incentive: More are drafting “use it or lose it” policies that prohibit carrying over unused vacation days from one year to the next.

“They’ll tell employees, ‘We want you to take time off, and that’s why we are implementing this policy,’” said Gary Kushner, an employee benefits consultant based in Portage, Mich.

“They don’t see vacation as a severance benefit,” said Carl Crosby Lehmann, a Minneapolis employment attorney who represents companies. “They see it as a benefit for people to recharge batteries. They want employees to take it off.”

Minnesota employers are watching a case before the state Supreme Court that could restrict the reach to “use it or lose it” policies. The ruling in the case, involving a fired worker denied payment for 181 hours of unused vacation time, is expected to clarify whether vacation time must be treated like wages, which must be paid.

In some workplaces, the boss is tapping lagging vacation takers on the shoulder.

At the Minneapolis law firm Oppenheimer Wolff & Donnelly, support staff and administrators receive e-mails, copied to their supervisors, when they edge close to the maximum number of vacation days they can accrue during a year. A human-resources assistant runs a report each month, tracking who’s getting close. At a certain point, days stop accruing until the worker takes some time off.

“We really encourage people to get away, have personal time, spend time with family or just do things around the house,” said Jeanine Ward, Oppenheimer’s director of human resources. “It’s a benefit we want them to use; that is why we give it to them.”

Julie Forster can be reached at jforster@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5189.