{"id":4876,"date":"2016-12-04T20:31:44","date_gmt":"2016-12-05T01:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vanessafrancis.com\/staging\/?p=4876"},"modified":"2016-12-04T20:31:44","modified_gmt":"2016-12-05T01:31:44","slug":"taking-vacation-must","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vanessafrancis.com\/staging\/2016\/12\/taking-vacation-must\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Taking Vacation is A Must"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Vanessa<\/p>\n

(photo taken by me at Cocoa Beach, near Orlando last May)<\/p>\n

In chatting with a friend recently, she let on that her husband has 17 weeks (that’s weeks, not days) of vacation owing to him at his current company. My former HR Manager self wondered how that could even be possible with most companies restricting the amount of vacation you can carry over from one year to the next. It seems, in smaller companies with no HR Dept, this is not unusual. And it seems that her husband is not alone. Not taking vacation is an epidemic at an all time high, especially in North America (just google the topic for references.) And the interesting fact is that Canadians receive a vacation allotment much less than other countries, especially those in Europe.\u00a0 I don’t know about you but when I worked in the corporate world I used up my vacation days each year.\u00a0 I also advocated for the four day work week at one employer. There are a number of reasons why people carry over their vacation year after year without using them but I want to focus on why it’s so important that people take vacation each year.<\/p>\n