Additional Productivity Tips – Should you stay in contact with the office while on vacation?

In last week’s post, we asked and answered three questions about:

Should you stay in contact with the office while on vacation?

This is a question that was recently posed by a reporter for Fox News.

With COVID hospitalization rates decreasing and travel increasing in 2022, it’s the perfect time to revisit this topic.

Here are two additional questions she asked:

How often should someone check in and how?

This is dependent on the industry and the nature of the job. If you’re a nuclear engineer in charge of emergency responses at a nuclear facility, and no one else in the entire company has been trained to know the first steps to take for monitoring and prevention, you might need to check in once a day. Outside of having a job tied to a life-or-death situation, the answer should be discussed with both your family members who will be on vacation with you, and your supervisor who sets the policies and procedures for your office. Many people feel obligated to check in while on vacation because they perceive that’s what their company expects. But when they hold an actual conversation with the decision-makers, they likely discover that is indeed not the case; the company does not expect the vacation check-ins. What it boils down to is there should be a differentiation between who truly must check in versus who feels obligated to do so.

If you or your company decides you absolutely must check in, and you’ve decided how often these check-ins will be, use a form of communication that you don’t ordinarily use for work. If you end up communicating via your work email, there’s a high probability you’ll get sucked into an inbox black hole when you’re tempted by other emails sitting there. Consider a text, phone call or some other digital messaging where you won’t be bombarded by a slew of other messages.

Can an employee really put their out-of-office email on and not look back during a trip?

Yes, an employee can really put their out-of-office email on and not look back during a trip if they want to fully support not only their productivity levels, but their own health and well-being. There are steps that can be taken to prepare the office for your absence so you can not only be away from work for a week or two without being disturbed, but you can also return to work without the stress of a mountain of catch-up work.

With planning and preparation, you can definitely stay as unplugged as you wish during your vacation.

If you need a how-to manual for getting away and deciding whether or not to stay in contact with the office while on vacation, check out these Escape from Work recommendations in online or book format.