-

Casual Friday

Date published: 6/2/2006

By ELIZABETH PEZZULLO

Liberating oneself from the workplace for a vacation used to mean no nagging boss, no incessantly ringing phone and no need to crowbar your eyelids open at an ungodly hour of the morn.

But thanks to e-mail, cell phones, text messaging, Blackberrys and the like, taking a walk on the beach is no walk on the beach.

In fact, there's even a newly coined phrase for this purported work respite: "the tethered vacation."

So, with some help from friends at the Five O'Clock Club newsletter, which opines on all things job-related, below are some tips on the art of "vacation negotiations."

Time away isn't always time off. How many times have you positioned your beach blanket next to some guy working on his laptop? Or sidled up to someone seemingly talking to himself, but really on a tiny phone that looks like a palmetto bug eating away his ear?

"With the tethered vacation becoming the rule rather than the exception, job-hunters need to determine a company's unwritten vacation policy and individual managers' expectations before negotiating time off," said Richard Bayer, an economist and ethicist who is chief operating officer of the Five O'Clock Club.

Consult the employee handbook. In large companies, vacation time is based on level and is often accrued for each month worked. But these policies are old and based on the expectation that employees would stay a long time. If you are at a certain level, you can make a case for getting the same vacation as others at your level.

Never demand time off. Be willing to make trade-offs. Decide what you're willing to give up in order to get more vacation time. This may mean sacrificing some of your salary or bonus, or agreeing to work overtime for a period of time.

Naturally, give as much advance notice as possible for vacations, especially those that take you abroad. And make sure to schedule obligatory days off for such things as weddings and graduations.

Find out what's expected. Does your manager expect you to call in once a day, check e-mails regularly and be available for conference calls? If that's the case, you might be able to negotiate for extra days or more frequent vacations.

Remember, Bayer said, that too much vacation has a downside. "When you're away from the office, you can't defend yourself against colleagues who want to undermine your position on a new initiative or steal the credit for a lucrative deal you put together," he said. "And when you are gone many organizations default to the 'out of sight, out of mind' posture, which limits your ability to get new plum assignments.

"Vacations are critical, but tricky," Bayer observed. "The pace of business requires intense investments of time, attention, skills and emotion. But humans need to decompress and recharge their batteries to continuously meet the demands of the workplace."

To reach ELIZABETH PEZZULLO:540/354-5421
Email: epezzullo@freelancestar.com

Date published: 6/2/2006