Create Plan a and Plan B When Requesting Vacation Time
In some offices with some managers, making a vacation request is not as easy as specifying the dates you want to leave. For these situations, Harvard Business Review suggests, if possible, to suggest several different options.
If your office culture resists vacation requests, it’s hard to bring up the topic. To facilitate this conversation, by offering two plans, your boss can choose to improve the overall tone of the conversation:
If this works for your family or others on your vacation, create Plan A and Plan B with a difference, for example, between the length of the vacation and specific dates, to give your manager several options. You might say, “My family is considering two options for coordination in my spouse’s firm and here in our company.” Your Plan A may be two weeks in a row, but perhaps you are ready to avoid the 4th of July. Your Plan B may have three days off, including the 4th of July, and a week of rest during the children’s winter break. This strategic approach requires some planning before you even apply for a vacation, but it enhances the tone and content of the conversation so much that it will be worth it.
Culturally, we are pretty bad at taking vacations , but the method described above at least reduces the ( completely unnecessary ) feelings of guilt.
Make it easier for your boss to say yes to a vacation request | Harvard Business Review