Nay-cation? Why Canadians are leaving vacation days on the table

Nay-cation? Why Canadians are leaving vacation days on the table
Garry Marr | March 18, 2014 | Last Updated: Mar 19 9:26 AM ET
It doesn’t seem to add up. Canadians put a lot of value on vacation but don’t even use the days they are entitled to.
A new survey by TD Bank finds 93% of Canadians think vacations are important to be “happy” but only 43% report using up all of the days they are entitled to.

It gets worse. All those vacation days not used amount to billions of dollars going back to employers because once they’re gone, they might just be gone forever.
Hellen Buttigieg, a life coach and founder of We Organize U, said she’s not surprised to see all vacation time left on the table.
“There is often a disconnect to what we value and how we behave,” said Ms. Buttigieg. “Vacation is an investment in our health, our relationships and in the long-run productivity.”
Shawnette Fraser, a branch manager at TD Canada Trust, says the answer is is pretty simple — Canadians are just too busy.
“A lot of Canadian are just forfeiting their vacation,” says Ms. Fraser.
The TD study conducted online by Environics Research Group from February 11 – 25 using 3,026 Canadians aged 18 years and older and working full-time, found 40% of respondents say they couldn’t afford a vacation.
Those unused vacation days amount to a lot of money and productivity. A study by Expedia.ca in 2009 found 34 million vacation days are unused every year by Canadians which ultimately translates into about $6-billion in income.
Lawyer Howard Levitt says you might be out of luck legally if you don’t manage to squeeze that vacation time in because employers are within their rights to have a “use it or lose it” vacation policy.
Every province usually has a minimum vacation period — usually two weeks that every employee has to get and legally must take — but everything above that is discretionary.
“They can say anything over two weeks [you don’t use] you lose,” said Mr. Levitt, adding you can spell out in a contract that you are allowed to accumulate days and carry them into the next year.
Toronto lawyer Hendrik Nieuwland says if your employment contract is not clear that you forfeit unused vacation days, you might have rights. There might be a legal argument that you are entitled to carry-over vacation or to receive a pay-out for unused vacation.
“I deal with [human resources] people all the time because I represent employers and I can tell you from a practical point of view the vast majority of HR people, 99%, are reasonable folk,” said Mr. Nieuwland, noting in most cases there can be a accommodation allowing an employee to use that banked time off at some point.
Ultimately, Mr. Nieuwland agrees that most people are not going to want to sue their current employer to get vacation entitlement. Plus, vacation is usually a small portion of any severance package and you can only legally go back two years for any claim.
Nevertheless, vacation is almost always an important negotiating point in any employment agreement, says Sean McLean, a Calgary-based partner with executive search team Caldwell Partners.
“Where vacation ranks changes based on the generation you are talking about. Baby Boomers empty nesters versus Millennials versus Generation Xers with a couple of young kids, it varies based on the stage of their life,” says McLean.
One vacation demand is consistent — nobody wants to go backwards in the amount of time they get off.
“Once people have attained a certain level of vacation, they don’t want to step back, they want to grow it even though they are fully aware they might not be able to use it all,” he says, adding the job market in a particular market or industry goes a long way to determining how much vacation you can demand.
Ms. Buttigieg thinks Canadians need to take a deeper look at why they are not taking better advantage of their vacation time. One suggestion she makes to clients, who feel like the can’t be off work, is to start slowly by taking just a day off or a long weekend.
“Maybe they see it as a luxury but it’s not a luxury, it’s self-care,” she says. “When I hear people say they can’t afford it, I feel like they are saying they don’t see the value in spending the money on it. Vacation is not frivolous.”