‘PTO-maxxing’ isn’t the problem: Your company’s culture might be

As companies gear up for annual summer vacations, there’s a new workplace trend bubbling up that leaders need to know about: “PTO-maxxing.” It’s the strategy employees are using to take their calendar holidays and plan vacation days around them, stretching a paid holiday into a lengthy break and maximizing their total PTO—potentially turning 14 PTO days into 46 vacation days. As CEO of my company, I see it less as a problem and more as a symptom of workplaces that continue to judge employees negatively for taking much-needed rest. One recent study found that while leaders recognize that vacations boost employee well-being and improve job performance, they still penalize employees who take them when they’re up for a promotion or being considered for a new role. Essentially, leaders weren’t walking the talk. The question becomes: Why are leaders subconsciously discouraging unplugging? If giving your employees time off sends your organization into a tailspin, it may be time to rethink your systems. For healthy teams, vacations can lead to deeper creativity and a stronger connection to the company. For fragile ones, things can start to unravel. Here’s why PTO is critical for both employee and company well-being—and what leaders can fix before vacation season exposes the cracks. Why autonomy makes teams stronger I’m a major believer in truly disconnecting from the office. As a leader, I try to walk the walk: Every year, we abscond for a couple of weeks to my family’s olive farm in Turkey. During those days spent walking the groves and helping with the harvest, I keep check-ins to a strict minimum. It’s good for my mental health, and it sends a message to employees: We value time off. At Jotform, our teams function like mini-companies, with the autonomy to set and meet their own deadlines. Rather than micromanaging them, we trust them to determine how they work—and when to step away. I’ve seen how this approach builds clarity, trust, and accountability. Ultimately, more autonomy increases output, as employees return to work more energized. Over the long term, it also builds resilience. What’s more, vacation time makes people feel less like a cog and more valued as a human being, according to one study. Those positive effects were even stronger than the boost employees received from monetary compensation. Emphasizing the importance of vacation and giving employees the freedom to take it can continually renew engagement. PTO is a stress test for your systems Imagine you’re trying to find a leak in a plumbing system. You don’t discover where the pipe is weak by staring at a blueprint. Instead, you run water through it. The pressure reveals the holes and cracks. In the same vein, employee vacations put healthy pressure on an organization. If work grinds to a halt when people step away, the problem isn’t the vacation; it’s the faulty pipe the vacation exposed. Encouraging employees to take time off is a crucial check-and-balance system for your company. I consider it an integral process for keeping an organization running smoothly. If productivity dips when people check out, managers must step in and examine the underlying workflows. For example, is there a gap in processes or documentation that can be resolved with automation? Is there a bottleneck that will require rethinking a workflow? As I’ve found, productivity drops tend to be flaws in the system, not in the flexibility itself. How to troubleshoot PTO problems Instead of pulling back perks when things falter, strong leaders address the root cause. They build repeatable systems and set expectations ahead of time. They create clear, formal policies. You may doubt whether spelling out your PTO policy makes a difference, but it works—for employees and managers alike. In one study of 200 managers, researchers found that simply showing them a company policy that established email-free weekends significantly reduced managers’ subconscious bias against those who disconnected. Take the time to draw up a concrete, concise PTO policy and communicate it to your company. Make sure employees know where to find it. Establish what’s expected of them before, during, and after vacations. Preparation, including designating the tools and training the right people to cover their responsibilities while they’re away, can set them up for a getaway that leaves them feeling truly recharged.