Holidays are nice, but too frequent

Yes, holidays are wonderful, but have we gone overboard?

Businesses and government agencies are now starting to take a closer look at the number of days that employees are paid to be absent from work. I agree totally with this philosophy, especially when it involves our government agencies. We are paying taxes to have services provided, yet there is a rising number of days in which these agencies are without workers. The end result, we are not getting our money's worth.

As for private businesses, management must be held accountable to shareholders regarding the expenditure of company assets.

I diligently strive to minimize my hypocrisy and I freely admit I took advantage and enjoyed those holidays as much as everyone else. As a manager, there lingered a small pebble of guilt sometimes, but not often.

There is no intent here to deny employees their deserved time off for hard work. My point, however, is that traditionally time off was earned by longevity with the company in the manner of vacation and sick days, not holidays. Admittedly, the erosion of employees being full-time and without benefits, holidays represent vacation to this growing percentage of the workforce.

The number of paid days has steadily grown from literally a handful less than a lifetime ago to a minimum of eleven nationally recognized holidays today. Although this is the minimum number of holidays observed by the majority of our nation, there are currently groups of individuals who receive up to twenty days of either paid holiday or personal days off. That equates to a full time employee for a minimum of three work weeks to more than one full month paid for by the employer but not realizing any benefit from the expense. It would be easy to focus the blame on unions or employees groups, but it is also the businesses and government who must shoulder their portion of the responsibility for granting these paid holidays.

When the economy is in such dire straits, the financial burden realized by businesses who provide the paid holidays and personal days is more onerous than during more positive economic times. The impact during these periods may vary in relationship to the size of the business or agency, but the impact remains a fact as personnel are missing from the workplace. Someone must shoulder the work requirements during these absences. And whether it is current employees or temporary help, the costs still increase to the business.

At entities expected to be staffed continuously, such as public safety and hospitals, the manipulation of personnel to provide the most basic of services during these holidays may be critical to the public. The individuals working within these agencies suffer a higher degree of stress than a majority of other professions, and therefore rate time off.

I mention these crucial supporters of our safety to highlight the difficulty of management and staff to schedule around the large number of days with reduced staff or closed facilities to meet the demands of the public.

Ironically the greatest demand on businesses and public safety agencies is during the periods of holidays, thereby placing an additional burden on those who must work during these trying times.

To all those who staff those types of agencies and businesses during the time the rest of us are reveling in our time off, we send you a colossal thank you and job well done.