Take it Down a Notch

Are you ready for a vacation? Or maybe you’ve already had your summer vacation and now you’re trying to get back to the routine at work? Summer in Germany is a strange thing. And when I say that, I’m not just talking about the weather. The school vacations drag on for ten weeks, starting this year in Bremen and Lower Saxony at the end of June. And as is so often the case, the Bavarians have set the end of vacation for the middle of September. Ten weeks in which little happens in the German economy – because the contact person is away, already has their bags packed or is burrowing their way through their inbox, trying to deal with all the emails received while on vacation. Strictly speaking, the summer downtime lasts even longer if we include the time that vacationers need to get back up to pace with the daily grind. That’s without mentioning the weeks before the annual vacation, in which people want to bring current projects to an end and have no time for – and pay no attention to – new ideas.

This means that in Germany, it feels like the summer break lasts for three months. This tendency was officially confirmed a while ago: the European institution Eiro determined that Germany is the European champion for holidays. In no other country in Europe do the people have more breaks from work.

Is this a bad thing? No way! As a highly productive economy, we can afford to take it down a notch in the middle of the year. In fact, this is something shown by the study just mentioned: Germans supply the most work hours per week, every week. (Only Romania is in front of Germany, with an additional 0.7 hours per week.)

Is this something that Germans have internalized – that they have earned their break and should enjoy it? I don’t think that’s the case! Instead of getting annoyed that the contact person from the IT contractor is lounging in Mallorca, that the co-worker at the branch in Spain hasn’t been answering emails for weeks or that only half of the local team is in action – just relax! You can’t change this anyway. It's rare that larger businesses close down during summer vacation.

As a pro athlete, I know how important it is to treat yourself and your body to a break. Anyone who performs at a high level needs time to reflect. Regularly. This is also true for businesses. Anyone who puts relaxation off until next month or even next year will find that this comes back to bite them. Most of you know that according to studies, more than 50% of managers are concerned about suffering from burn-out during their professional life.

Many employers have started to take these concerns seriously: At Deutsche Telekom AG, the top brass are not allowed to send their colleagues emails while those colleagues are on holiday. The same applies, by the way, on the weekend and after work. Companies like Continental and SAP have developed special vacation programs too.

I think this is a good thing! At the boardroom level, it should be much more strongly emphasized that timeouts are important and that they don’t get “nullified” by giving employees twice as much work to do before and after their vacation in order to compensate for their absence.

One option could for example be deleting emails during vacation – we all know that some things manage to resolve themselves on their own. Another could be approving quiet periods. There are many good approaches in the world of start-ups. At the end of a tough week of work, co-workers from younger firms meet for an evening beer, a table football tournament or a picnic in the park. I’d like to see something more like this in all companies: work hard, play hard. Use the summer to let the spirit wander and to develop new ideas rather than high-pressure work getting though your to-do list.

Anyone who needs inspiration should look at the Olympics in Brazil. We can all learn something from the fluency, the good atmosphere and the positive spirit.