How to Negotiate for More Vacation Time
If your company is typical, you get just a few short weeks of vacation a year. Here's how to wrangle for more.
- Difficulty:
- Moderately Challenging
Instructions
-
-
1
Choose an appropriate time to ask for more vacation. The best time is usually during a solid performance review, but other choice times include the end of a profitable fiscal year, after a successful presentation or simply when you find your manager in a good mood.
-
2
Make sure you're able to give your manager a good reason why you need more vacation time.
-
3
Prepare a list of reasons why you feel you deserve to be rewarded this way. Perhaps you put in extra hours on a weekly basis, or you just saved the company a lot of money on a large purchase.
-
4
Decide what you're willing to give up in order to get more vacation time. This may mean sacrificing some or all of your upcoming raise or agreeing to work an extra half-hour each day, for example.
-
5
Make sure to point out any benefits your employer will realize from this arrangement. These reasons may include greater employee job satisfaction, or a way for your employer to keep payroll increases down.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
Be willing to bend. Agreeing not to take three weeks off in a row or agreeing to split up vacation time in some other manner may help your case.
Ask for what you want, but don't demand. You may risk offending the boss.
Related Searches
Comments
-
This article is outdated and unrealistic based on what is going on today because of corporations looking for a cheaper and quicker way of doing business to profit the few. Say bye-bye to "Made in USA!"
-
Wow, I wish I could come up with something to get more time off... Even my Birthday.. :-)
-
angesuccess
Mar 23, 2010
I think I prefer being self-employed - I take the office with me if needed and go where I like for as long as a like! I used to book my vacations as far in advance as possible so it was too far in the future for some event to be used as an excuse not to go! By the time anything cropped up, people knew I wasn't going to be there and automatically worked round it. An organised worker is never indespensible! -
Summer Wagner
Jan 13, 2010
I disagree with the Anonymous comments. These days, employers simply demand more and want to give less. This is true at any time, but especially true in the recession we are in. I'm not talking about the recession that "started" in 2008. I'm talking about the one that started in 2000 in the IT industry that has never let up for the last ten years. How can you ask for more vacation or better salary when somebody in another country will do your job for a dime on the dollar? This is why we need government regulation against offshoring when there are workers domestically (with a higher cost of living) that need a job. The managers will just have to live with one less million on their end of year bonus.
-
Nov 22, 2005
Sometimes managers are more willing to explore the possibilities of more vacation time or salary hikes. This doesn't mean your request gets put on the back burner - quite the opposite. This means you and your manager will immediately discuss your request, with your manager coming up with some of the ideas as to how to make it work. A sample exchange might start with you asking for and explaining why you need more vacation or money. Then, you might ask your manager, "What are the different ways we could explore that would make this work out?" or "Do you see ways that you might look at the budget to help me work this out?"
