And the survey said ...
" Almost half the respondents rated their stress levels at work "moderate" to "extreme"
" 66% said they did not work while on vacation
" 57% began to feel like they had never been on vacation within the first three days back
" 40% said they would return "relaxed and refreshed" if they took two weeks off from work at a time
Source:Air New Zealand's "Vacation Gap" study
If Americans can't be persuaded to take
time off from their jobs to travel for fun, one airline is trying
to persuade them to travel by pointing out that vacations spur
productivity.
With the results
of a study in hand, the airline, Air New Zealand, has science to
back up the theory that vacations actually boost worker
productivity.
"More than 43% of
Americans don't even have plans to take a vacation this year
because the country's work ethic demands productivity to the point
that it's actually undermining itself," according to Air New
Zealand's vice president for the Americas, Roger
Poulton.
"Our study
definitively proves Americans would be more productive if they took
their vacations."
Air New Zealand
set out to probe the question of why Americans work more than their
counterparts in other industrialized nations and often don't even
take the relatively short vacation time allotted them by their
employers.
The ensuing
"Vacation Gap" study examined the difference between Americans'
perceptions about the effect of their
vacations and the real effects. Dr. Mark Rosekind, former director
of the Center for Human Sleep Research and the NASA Fatigue
Countermeasures Program, was brought on board for the
study.
About 1,200 U.S.
travelers were surveyed in early 2006 about their vacation-planning
processes, the transition into a vacation mind-set, the in-flight
experience and the effect of stress on their
performance.
According to Air
New Zealand, 51% said they would be willing to reduce benefits,
daily breaks, pay or holiday time off to get more annual vacation
time (see box for more results from this portion
of the study).
The second part
of the study gathered hard data to compare with the
perceptions.
Ten people taking
vacations that included an air trip between New Zealand and the
U.S. in April and May were wired with sensors on their scalp, face,
chin and chest to measure heart rate, muscle activity, eye
movements and brain activity. From two days before departure until
two days after they returned, each subject wore an activity monitor
on his or her wrist.
To measure
performance, the research team provided each subject with a
hand-held device similar to a Palm Pilot that administered tests
three times a day to measure alertness and reaction time: A
bullseye appeared on the screen at random intervals and the
traveler was instructed to push a button as soon as they saw the
target.
According to the
airline, positive performance on the tests increased 82% during the
vacation. Post-vacation performance increased 25% compared with
pre-vacation performance.
The study also
found that after returning from a vacation, subjects got three
times more deep sleep ("rejuvenating sleep when the cells
physically regenerate," according to Air New Zealand) after their
vacation.
Also, data
collected by the sensors showed that going on vacation lowered
travelers' heart rates by more than 4%, said Air New
Zealand.
For more
information on the study, visit www.vacationgap.com.
To contact reporter David Cogswell, send e-mail to [email protected].