Want A Raise Or Promotion? You Should Use All Your Vacation Time

For those of us that work in the radio industry, there's an unhealthy attitude a lot of us who work in it have toward taking time off. This attitude might give us a little piece of mind, but research indicates it might not get you that raise or promotion. I'm talking about not taking all the vacation time you get as one of your benefits.

In radio, the attitude goes back to the days when radio stations had large staffs. The idea was when you took off, a part-timer would fill in. The boss might like the part-timer better and when you returned, your job would be given to the part-timer and you'd be fired. It kind of led to paranoia in the biz, which still somewhat exists today. Especially among older talents.  That said, the fear of being penalized in your job or career for taking time off isn't limited to those who work in radio. It's somewhat of a universal fear.

The problem may even be worse today than it was in the 1980s. Business Insider reports that The Washington Post analyzed federal data that shows 1.7 percent of the American workforce is on vacation at any given time, in 1980 that number was 3.2 percent. Business Insider says this might be because employees fear what I wrote about above, as well as the trend of lumping vacation days, personal days, and sick days altogether.

Yet, if you want that raise or promotion, perhaps you should use your vacation time. Harvard Business Review says Project: Time Off, one of the more robust studies on how vacations impact companies and employees, has found that taking vacation time increases your chances of getting a raise or promotion. Project: Time Off found that people who take all their time off have a 6.5 percent higher chance of getting a raise than those who leave 11 days or more vacation unused.

While it's a correlation, not a causation, it does blow the theory that NOT taking time off is the way to get ahead in the workplace.

Additionally, using your vacation time will leave your manager with the impression that you're more productive. It also leads to more happiness and energy on the job, which translates to greater productivity, intelligence, and resilience in the workplace.

There's one more reason to take all your vacation time. If you work full time and it's part of your benefits package, you're essentially taking a pay cut when you work instead of taking your vacation time.

So go ahead, and take that vacation. It might just lead to a promotion or a raise.