Chances are, if you’re reading this, you are in a management or executive position and considering treating your employees to a small holiday trip to a resort. Well, even if you’re not hopefully now you are- because the short answer to whether or not you should take them to a day-off to chill at a resort is, yes! Now let’s look at the long answer. Japan happens to be one of the superpowers in Asia, it’s a corporate wonderland and powerhouse of productivity. From technology to lifestyle to infrastructure, they’re topping charts all the time so what is the trick?
Part of it is the incredible work ethic that Japan has and shares with people in our own country India and the other part is the way employees are managed in that country: if an employee dozes off during work it’s considered a sign of hard work, corporate tea ceremonies and cherry blossom viewing picnics are all too common and once in a while the firms take their employees to hot springs.
To some people that might be overkill and to others it seems like too little for the employees’ hard work (especially if they’re working more than they ideally should, more on that later) but wherever you lie on the spectrum- keeping your employee’s morale up is crucial to your business, human resource is the most important aspect of any business, without people to work for you efficiently, there is no team, without a team there is no work done if there’s no work done you might as well shut down. It has been proven time and again by research that working for more than forty hours a week decreases your productivity greatly and the more extra work you do the lower it dips exponentially.
Unfortunately, the reality of the matter is almost everyone working in a corporate environment is working way more than forty hours, forty hours are rookie numbers- ask a stockbroking agent about the work hours in a week and they’ll probably laugh in your face, there is no end!
On a serious note, work fatigue is real and it gets to the best of us, even your top-performing employee will give in after a while. With that said, sending people on long vacations is not an option either because of obvious reasons and since everyone doesn’t get that simultaneously, it might create a socially awkward atmosphere between you and your employees, seriously, don’t choose between your team members never do that. What will you do then? Can’t ask them to keep working, can’t send them on long vacations- a small retreat to a resort seems reasonable now doesn’t it?
It’s a good chance that your sleep-deprived caffeine-dependent employees are gluing their eyelids open to keep performing if you come from a high-stress environment. The forty-hour rule is even more evident in jobs that require more focus, dexterity, and some degree of sensitivity, these are exhausting times and the more time people spend doing stressful things the more agitated and annoyed they become.
That doesn’t paint a beautiful picture for a healthy work environment, it’s actually quite the opposite. On the plus side, let’s assume you go to a two-day resort retreat or a one-day water park resort trip to cool down the steam rising from you and your employees’ head. You can communicate and get to know your employees better on a professional and personal basis and group bonding may result in much better cohesion, teamwork, and performance from your employees- by giving them a day off, you’re actually getting more work done.
Of course, your credibility as a good leader for recognizing time for a break goes up and it is safe to assume that opinion on you as an authority might reasonably go up because there are far too few people in this world that are working and don’t appreciate breaks, a day off at a resort is a treat.
In conclusion, the resort trip will help you and your employees get on the same page and bond, mutually relax and let some stress off your shoulders and increase productivity- effective immediately. Is it taxing on the funds? It might or it might not, depending on your revenue or budget and the number of employees you have. Is it a bad bargain? No, absolutely not it will provide good results in the long run.