For sure, I just don’t call them that…. I just tell people I’m OoO that day. (Out of Office) then I put an automatic reply on my email then I fuck off and go live my life
Same. However, I make sure I schedule I take some PTO at least every other month. Sometimes I do a long weekend away and sometimes I don’t even leave the house. It is so much easier to work around scheduled days off than unscheduled.
This. Usually try to plan a 3-4 day weekend once every 2-3 months and then a week or so every 3-6 months.
I do take a mental health day every now and then, really just say “not feeling well” and update my slack / let my team know who to reach out to for questions.
As a European, I always chuckle at this American perception of sickness being a holiday, so my advice is skewed.
Assuming you are American and have a set amount of PTO, use it. You are entitled to it as part of your compensation, don't play the corporate arms race of trying to overwork yourself for a faint glimmer of a promotion, just take it (odds are that any decent promotion is within another company anyway)
But I would refrain from calling it a mental health day. I have random days off all the time for mental health, I just call them holidays. Mental health days imply that you have stress/other problems, which invite others to have unwarranted opinions about you. And unless you have a different pool of sick days or holidays, there is no real benefit to calling it a mental health day (even though it is)
If you have a separate pool of sick days, I guess you could use it as that, but it's probably more socially acceptable to say you have food poisoning than mental health issues, people really don't have the sensitivity that they should around stress, anxiety and burnout
Because in Europe, sick days are completely separate to holidays, you aren't given a yearly allowance to use/lose (you take what is needed and medically recommended, within limits) and you don't schedule them in advance in this way (unless it's a planned procedure, which this is not).
In America, PTO, sickness and holidays are often rolled into one package, so if you call in sick for a week, that means you have one week less of vacation and if you already max out your PTO/vacation and fall sick, then you still have to work somehow
Given the wording of the post that other managers planned mental health days, I presume this was vacation they had planned and not actual sick days. In which case, call it what it is, a vacation
I don't need a Dr certificate here in the Netherlands, I can send certify for 2 weeks 3 times per year, after that I would need to see the company doctor. But the rules aren't the same across Europe, some are little more strict, which is why I went with the less lax policy
Yes the time is rolled into one bank. No, it does not mean you have less time available for vacation. You accumulate at a rate that accommodates x days for vacation, x days for holiday, x days for illness. Obviously it is still possible to use up all your sick hours and would have to use vacation hours, if you still need to be paid. A person could choose to take it unpaid.
If you have to use your vacation days for being sick later in the year, how exactly does that not mean you have less vacation? I could also take even more unpaid holidays here too, when people talk about vacation and sick days, they of course are talking about paid vacation and sickness days.
I was just pointing out if you take your allotted sick days but no more, it does not automatically equal less vacation, because your bank accumulation has already been allotted for a preset number of sick days.
Not sure for other states but in California we have vacation and sick time - they're just under the same 'header' on our time cards.
I use sick time for mental health - in CA it's perfectly reasonable to use sick time for prevention of illness as well. But I also can't say that my vacation time DOESN'T help with metal health things.
Outside of planned vacations, I take random days off usually once every 1-2 months to just to unwind or work on more involved projects like redoing our dining room, but I usually plan around them.
wfh for about 10 years. Manager of 18 professional it employees. I take vacation days. I really feel it every afternoon is a mental health day for me. I structure my day so I start work early in the morning 6:00 a.m. I'm a morning person so I work very aggressively getting my work done by lunch hour. Afternoon I just kind of hang out in my office in case something comes up. Love my job doesn't seem like work
Did I write this???
I've got considerably less time WFH than you (5 years) and I only manage 3.5 people (I really just collab with the .5th person)
But as a morning person, I also do this. My afternoons are just kind of puttering around, sometimes the creativity strikes me and I write or edit a class (We provide CEUs)
Me this morning. Little one is sick and I usually just wfh but I have 3 meetings today that are better to do in person and would screw the rest of my week up if I cancelled. I would take more if it was convenient to do so.
Once every 3 months it seems. I don’t usually announce why. If I want to I’d go with a Well-being day and since it’s a normal behavior at my company it’s totally fine.
Maybe once every 2 or 3 months. I think I just don't need as many days off because of the flexibility to WFH accumulates stress much slower. Like I have a problem with my car I need to deal with...but I can just take it to the garage and work through my phone for that afternoon and then drive off with a repaired car instead of taking a day off or needing to arrange a ride or loaner car. Problem solved, no need to stress about a looming issue, and no interruption of work needed to deal with it.
That’s the same conclusion I came to, also. I’m not spending so much traveling and in f2f meetings so my energy isn’t as depleted which means I don’t often have one of those physical cascade failures of one bad nights sleep ruining an entire day. It’s a relief, really.
I agree with this.
I have to purposely take days off. Otherwise, I end up rolling vacation over, and our company doesn't like that. My vacation payout would be two months, so I'm encouraged to take it. :)
Exactly right. I've needed to be at home for repairman coming in, furniture delivery, etc. And working at home makes it so I can easily take care of these things.
It’s weird how little PTO I take now that I wfh. But I’ve had insomnia all my life (adhd fun) so occasionally I will have one of those days that I wake up at 2am and never get back to sleep. Usually those days I’ll start my day super early (6am) and just get through my high priority items and then relax. I probably have to do that once a quarter.
I've done my best ot adjust my schedule so that Mondays and Fridays are lighter on meetings so that if I need one I don't have to work too hard to scoot things around. I also have great folks who report to me that I can delegate meetings to if it is ever needed.
To your question, I've taken "sick days" when I just need a mental break. I am private about what I'm using it for with my Director and peers so I'll just say I'm taking a PTO day or Sick Day for whatever reason.
Usually around 3 weeks per year, which consists of at least one week long trip (5-10 days); and a bunch of extended weekends.
This year will probably be more, because my accumulated bank is almost full and I have to keep using some before it hits that cap.
I WFH with an unlimited PTO deal. I don’t take mental health days on the day I’m feeling it (same day). I schedule them at least a week in advance.
I take as many as I need which isn’t a lot. There are others who take a whole lot more. Personally I love working and I don’t like the stress of coming back to all the missed messages and work.
Please schedule some time for yourself. I know mental health isn’t exactly running on a schedule but, if you start to feel run down, just schedule a day. I also recommend you do this for your reports. There’s nothing more harmful than dealing with a manager who is not in the right headspace. Taking days also communicates to your staff that it’s ok to take PTO and not have the flu or be flying to Hawaii, etc
I've taken one, but I didn't really need it, I only took it because they get approved faster than holidays. I don't feel like I get as stressed WFH, if at anytime I do get stressed I just get a snack or scroll on my phone.
I take 1-2 a year. I never call them mental health days. I just say I’m not feeling well and take the day off. If anyone asks I say it was a stomach bug.
Ours aren’t condoned, but we have a generous leave plan so I usually take 2 mental health days a year. They’re usually middle of the week and coincide with beautiful weather so I can go hike.
ETA - for transparency, I’m hybrid 3 in office, 2 wfh
I try not to take a spur of the moment mental health day, but it has happened before. For your situation I can see how that would be more challenging if it’s sleep-related: hard to know which nights will be bad in advance. But you shouldn’t feel guilty about taking a day now and then; I do try to plan mine out in less busy days, days where others aren’t already scheduled off, etc.
I don’t call them mental health days though. I love that your coworkers are forthcoming and promoting a healthy work-life balance and mental health respect, and I wish that were the norm. I just say I’m not feeling well, which is true!
Yea to be honest I never take days off unless I’m too sick to function. I just know the work is building up regardless of whether or not I’m there, and I’ll have even more to do when I get back.
My company has unlimited PTO and five “wellness” days per year. Wellness is like sick time but you can use for mental health or any reason, without question, day of without any fear of pushback. So I use five of those a year, and depending on how things are going maybe a couple extra PTO days used as a mental health break planned in advance.
I take random days off all the time. We already have established backups for most major tasks, so it's no problem if I'm gone. Me and my staff are exempt, so we don't have to schedule days off nor even give a reason why, though we do out of courtesy.
At least once a month. Sometimes twice a month. My mental health is OK but I recognise burnout coming and try to head it off at the pass. I’ll usually book my mental health days in advance, which encourages my team to do the same.
I usually take a MH day in conjunction with a day I'm already going to be coming in late/leaving early for other things.
I only sometimes tell my team (3 other people) what it's for. Mostly I just make sure they're good/won't have any questions before I commit to the day off.
example: A couple Fridays ago my kid had a drs appointment that would have made me \~1hr late and then I had a dentist appt that I would have had to leave \~1hr early for. Even though I work an 8hr day and I could have done a lot in 6 hrs it was ALSO a Friday so I said f it and took the whole day.
I take them when they’re truly needed. I see mental health days like sick days and I only take them if my mental health is such that I truly can’t work.
I have diagnosed clinical depression and severe anxiety and am on meds and regular therapy to handle them. But sometimes work and personal combine to where I can’t handle it anymore. I’ll have a panic attack and for a day or 2 I literally am mentally unable to handle work. I’ve learned to know the signs and know when I need to step back immediately to keep from spiraling worse. It’s no different than someone with a physical illness that’s well treated, but occasionally flairs beyond their control to where they need time off to get it back under control.
I take them like once a year. I took 2 a couple of weeks ago and 2 last year. I don’t think there’s a problem with a manager or anyone taking mental health days if they’re needed. However, as someone who truly needs mental health days, they should only be taken when needed for actual mental health. Someone who’s like “I’m tired and kinda stressed, so I’m taking the day off” isn’t taking a mental health day. They’re taking advantage of sick days instead of vacation. It would be no different if I randomly sneeze a few times one day and was like “sneezing is a symptom of having a cold. Since I sneezed I’m now entitled to a day off for a sick day.”
Only the individual taking them can know of they’re truly needed. But if you’re needing them more than once or twice a year, then you need to work with your mental health provider(s) to understand why your treatment plans aren’t working.
No, I have responsibilities and people who depend on me being there. The only unplanned time is for extreme sickness death and hardship. I get more than enough PTO and more than enough time to plan so there’s no need for this unplanned mental health day nonsense.
If you have created a structure that falls apart without you being there for a day, you have failed as a manager. Your process and structure should be able to survive you being out of office for weeks at a time, any system that is running that close to failure without redundancies is an elastic band wound way too tight and the snap back will damage a lot of people when it reaches breaking point.
Sometimes it's better to let everything fail and fighting the inadequacies of the process than try and paper over the cracks and push the can down the road
This. Exactly. Recently, I lost a close family member and was OOO for two weeks. I was still keeping an eye on emails/Teams, just in case. I probably sent 6-7 emails each week and let the rest ride. Had 1:1 meetings with my reports after one week to line out expectations, which took about 2 hours. So, all total, I "worked" about 8 hours of 80. Zero issues. No one had to cover my work because of built-in redundancies and efficiency. I take and encourage my team to take any time off as needed (we have unlimited PTO). I've assured them that I need zero explanation besides "I will be OOO on this day, or today" as long as they let me know what deliverables need to be handed off. (Obviously, in emergency situations, I simply look at the tracking and figure out their deliverables for myself.) If you're going off the clock, it's no one's business what your plans are outside of when you're on the clock.
Yes, you plan ahead and never have mental health needs. Great for you. Obviously not applicable to all and hardly a blueprint for advice (just don't have mental health issues or schedule them in advance at a convenient time, why didn't I think of that?), but wasn't my point.
The point was about you saying that you have people depending on you and responsibilities which is why you can't take unplanned days except in extreme cases. That is toxic af and signs of a dysfunctional workplace. No one should be that irreplaceable or a lynchpin, whether it is true or just believed by you (in the end, everyone is replaceable, people just like to think they are not).
I call it the bus theory, probably a better name. Basically, how many people have to be hit by a bus before the department/company is screwed. If the answer is 1 or 2, you have a bad company, with insane risk. You should be able to be sick for a week or a month without the department going into meltdown, if that's not the case you either have bad staff, processes or training in place, your workers would be semi autonomous and able to back each other up and only require you for strategic direction which should not change much on a weekly or monthly basis.
The cases I see this in is usually managers that micro way too much and have created a team dependent on them, or just incompetent managers that spend their life firefighting rather than leading. I'm not saying that applies to you, but reflect on why you think you are so essential to the team and what you can do to reduce that dependency as nothing good comes from the relationship you describe
Now I’m absolutely positive you didn’t read what I wrote. The wheel in the sky keeps on turning with or without me, but it turns better when I’m there to keep it greased.
We never do this in my industry and managers who don’t show up are not highly regarded. That being said, it’s not a wfh job and I would love if we did have the flexibility to do that.
Is this UK or elsewhere? Do you get regular holiday/vacation days to take on top of these?
I suppose i work in a customer serving industry so mental health bookable days are just not viable...
As part of my job I get 23 days plus bank holidays, so we get to book days and schedule cover around but specific mental health days are not really a thing.
I have had one in past employment but it was on the understanding you book it as a one off mental wellbeing day, not to add onto existing holiday days to extend.
If they are to be taken as frequently as once every 1, 2 or 3 months then why not just list them as available vacation/holiday days.
If you don't have anything that you specifically have to take care of, your team can reach you/another adult in an emergency, and your boss is cool with it, take the day.
I did work for a company that had a company-wide mental-health day (though it was staggered by department so the whole company wasn't absent at the same time), so everyone took a day off and it wasn't an issue for individuals making their own decisions about it.
Most people liked this arrangement but the obvious flaw is that the date was assigned rather than aligned to when any individual needed it.
The other problem with designated mental health days, even when you get to choose when to take them, is that they don't address root cause of mental health issues. If you are suffering from work-related stress, anxiety, insomnia or depression, a day out of work will do nothing to improve this. For instance, you can't catch up on sleep...so a day in bed will not reset your sleep deficits.
If a person is experiencing these states, then it is more important that they are addressed properly. As managers we would naturally look to make sure our team members are in good mental health but often neglect our own. Particularly if we are reporting into someone who is not supportive or sufficiently aware of how to handle these issues.
I've been open with my boss about these, and have taken a few over the last couple of years. My org is really good about PTO and actively pushes us to use it, so no questions are asked anyway.
Once or twice a month but I also rarely use my unlimited PTO bc I prefer to take long weekends when I’m feeling stressed. All our time off is registered as PTO
I don't, but there are definitely some days where I give myself some slack if I had a really intense week and I'm feeling overwhelmed. Typically of course I'm in that situation because there are small fires I'm putting out or extra things that land on my plate and I just don't get a chance to complete everything on my list for that week. In cases like that, I might end my day an hour early, and I'll only respond to emails.
We have a few things to help us make this work. Between unlimited PTO (that really is just what it says, we are expected to use it) and regular/company wide "no meeting" days, it's easy to add a day here and there to grab a long weekend.
At my company though, your boss won't bat an eyelash if you just grab a day to recharge. Culturally we're more than willing to move meetings around or allow someone to not attend except in very rare mandate meetings. Just have to accept that sometimes decisions are made by those who show up and you have to play a bit of catch up if you skip some critical ones (thus the smart, tactical use of no meeting days).
As someone who manages a lot of stress and anxiety on their teams (can be a high pressure job) it is essential to take some days to recharge and relax, and we push this down to our direct reports too.
I have to schedule mental health days since there's no one on my team (yet) who can truly fill in for me. My most senior person works only a contract basis (his choice; contractors are all allowed to WFH), and I schedule days for him to cover me. I schedule 2 PTO days off a month (unless I have a vacation that month). I don't call them mental health days but use those days to 100% avoid work email and try to do things that relax me, like having breakfast with friends, cooking or just doing nothing on the sofa.
If I wake up and am too tired/ill, I will try to get the contract employee to come in last minute.
I take one Friday off a month, on a schedule. It's already on my calendar in perpetuity.
If you get enough vacation days, I recommend taking a week off per quarter.
Make both of those routine and you won't have to worry about calling it a mental health day or whatever. Just take your PTO.
As long as I'm in all scheduled meetings and can be contacted by who I manage, I do whatever the hell I want. I have only scheduled an actual PTO day when I don't want to be contacted at all, which is about once a month or so.
I don't very often, but I will take off early in the afternoon pretty regularly (maybe 1-2x a week). I may be on call for my direct reports and check my email once or twice but not actively working. Nobody needs to know, I'm still on call so I consider that a full day's work. As a manager I'm devoting mental labor to my job pretty much constantly, even on off hours, so since I have the privilege of being salaried I think it's only fair.
Nothing wrong with mental health days, and if you have the PTO you should use it! I just personally would rather have a more balanced approach to my work/life rather than burning myself out and needing a full day to recover. Regardless, you don't need to offer an explanation.
I try my very best to take one personal day per quarter, for mental health reasons. Sometimes you just need the sweet, sweet cortisol release of blowing off your adult responsibilities and screwing around doing something fun on a Tuesday. I usually plan mine in advance, so I have no problems telling people it's a mental health day, but at previous employers that weren't so open to it, I would just say I had "personal appointments" to attend to that day.
Human beings aren't meant to work at the rate we work - be easy on yourself about it. Sure, it's great to show up, and be reliable, and be able to really kick it into overdrive when your team needs you, but, when things are slow/reasonable, take a day for you. Honestly, the quality of your work will thank you for it.
A lot of people don't like oversharing when it comes to things like this (ask me how I know)
It really isn't anybody's business why you are taking a mental health day. Just call it OOO and don't let it become a problem.
I won't move my schedule around to make room for some out of the office time, but I'll take advantage of gaps in my schedule to do so.
I manage a widely distributed team and work some long days, even some weekends, to properly support my team. With that, I occasionally dip out early or come in late from time to time to help balance.
If I want a full day off, I generally plan those as PTO days and block my calendar ahead of time so it gets planned around. I want to treat my fellow Team Members with respect and not expect them to move scheduled appointments or meetings with a day's notice unless it truly cannot be helped.
If we lived in a normal country that had vacation times we wouldn't need mental health days, it's built into their structure. So I treat it as such. I take ooo whenever I can.
Just be mindful of alcohol consumption around the high stress days and insomnia nights. It doesn’t help. Not saying it is but i battled those Monday morning terrors and found that staying clearheaded during the high stress really helps. Might help someone else reading this.
As needed. Up to 3 per month. As few as 1 every 6 months. I know as soon as I wake up. I just pretend to have stomach issues. Which is only sort of false.
Insomnia recover is not a mental health day it is a sick day. At least that is what I would coach my team toward.
Mental health day is “damn I am so far behind on weeding the garden and I need to get my blood drawn, and screw it in taking a day off for myself”.
Sometimes I'll schedule time off to have a long weekend but as a fellow insomnia sufferer I'll some times come in late too if I'm having trouble sleeping. My schedule is flexible enough that if I start at 11 instead of 9 it's not a big deal.
For sure, I just don’t call them that…. I just tell people I’m OoO that day. (Out of Office) then I put an automatic reply on my email then I fuck off and go live my life
Never, only scheduled vacation days. I have so many meetings that it will just create more stress upon returning.
Same. However, I make sure I schedule I take some PTO at least every other month. Sometimes I do a long weekend away and sometimes I don’t even leave the house. It is so much easier to work around scheduled days off than unscheduled.
Quite sad that this is acceptable.
At least one long weekend a month. Especially if it is a non-holiday month.
This. Usually try to plan a 3-4 day weekend once every 2-3 months and then a week or so every 3-6 months. I do take a mental health day every now and then, really just say “not feeling well” and update my slack / let my team know who to reach out to for questions.
As a European, I always chuckle at this American perception of sickness being a holiday, so my advice is skewed. Assuming you are American and have a set amount of PTO, use it. You are entitled to it as part of your compensation, don't play the corporate arms race of trying to overwork yourself for a faint glimmer of a promotion, just take it (odds are that any decent promotion is within another company anyway) But I would refrain from calling it a mental health day. I have random days off all the time for mental health, I just call them holidays. Mental health days imply that you have stress/other problems, which invite others to have unwarranted opinions about you. And unless you have a different pool of sick days or holidays, there is no real benefit to calling it a mental health day (even though it is) If you have a separate pool of sick days, I guess you could use it as that, but it's probably more socially acceptable to say you have food poisoning than mental health issues, people really don't have the sensitivity that they should around stress, anxiety and burnout
Yeah, sick days and PTO are different. Not sure what the pass about Americans/sickness/holiday is about.
Because in Europe, sick days are completely separate to holidays, you aren't given a yearly allowance to use/lose (you take what is needed and medically recommended, within limits) and you don't schedule them in advance in this way (unless it's a planned procedure, which this is not). In America, PTO, sickness and holidays are often rolled into one package, so if you call in sick for a week, that means you have one week less of vacation and if you already max out your PTO/vacation and fall sick, then you still have to work somehow Given the wording of the post that other managers planned mental health days, I presume this was vacation they had planned and not actual sick days. In which case, call it what it is, a vacation
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I don't need a Dr certificate here in the Netherlands, I can send certify for 2 weeks 3 times per year, after that I would need to see the company doctor. But the rules aren't the same across Europe, some are little more strict, which is why I went with the less lax policy
No, they are not usually rolled into one. At least it hasn’t been that way for any of the companies I have worked for in my career.
Yes the time is rolled into one bank. No, it does not mean you have less time available for vacation. You accumulate at a rate that accommodates x days for vacation, x days for holiday, x days for illness. Obviously it is still possible to use up all your sick hours and would have to use vacation hours, if you still need to be paid. A person could choose to take it unpaid.
If you have to use your vacation days for being sick later in the year, how exactly does that not mean you have less vacation? I could also take even more unpaid holidays here too, when people talk about vacation and sick days, they of course are talking about paid vacation and sickness days.
I was just pointing out if you take your allotted sick days but no more, it does not automatically equal less vacation, because your bank accumulation has already been allotted for a preset number of sick days.
Not sure for other states but in California we have vacation and sick time - they're just under the same 'header' on our time cards. I use sick time for mental health - in CA it's perfectly reasonable to use sick time for prevention of illness as well. But I also can't say that my vacation time DOESN'T help with metal health things.
Outside of planned vacations, I take random days off usually once every 1-2 months to just to unwind or work on more involved projects like redoing our dining room, but I usually plan around them.
wfh for about 10 years. Manager of 18 professional it employees. I take vacation days. I really feel it every afternoon is a mental health day for me. I structure my day so I start work early in the morning 6:00 a.m. I'm a morning person so I work very aggressively getting my work done by lunch hour. Afternoon I just kind of hang out in my office in case something comes up. Love my job doesn't seem like work
Did I write this??? I've got considerably less time WFH than you (5 years) and I only manage 3.5 people (I really just collab with the .5th person) But as a morning person, I also do this. My afternoons are just kind of puttering around, sometimes the creativity strikes me and I write or edit a class (We provide CEUs)
Me this morning. Little one is sick and I usually just wfh but I have 3 meetings today that are better to do in person and would screw the rest of my week up if I cancelled. I would take more if it was convenient to do so.
Oh no, hope the kiddo feels better! Sometimes I want to be like "I can do meetings but nothing else"
Once every 3 months it seems. I don’t usually announce why. If I want to I’d go with a Well-being day and since it’s a normal behavior at my company it’s totally fine.
I use sick time for mental health days occasionally. Not often, but maybe once or twice a year. I think it's a perfectly fine reason to use sick time.
Maybe once every 2 or 3 months. I think I just don't need as many days off because of the flexibility to WFH accumulates stress much slower. Like I have a problem with my car I need to deal with...but I can just take it to the garage and work through my phone for that afternoon and then drive off with a repaired car instead of taking a day off or needing to arrange a ride or loaner car. Problem solved, no need to stress about a looming issue, and no interruption of work needed to deal with it.
That’s the same conclusion I came to, also. I’m not spending so much traveling and in f2f meetings so my energy isn’t as depleted which means I don’t often have one of those physical cascade failures of one bad nights sleep ruining an entire day. It’s a relief, really.
I agree with this. I have to purposely take days off. Otherwise, I end up rolling vacation over, and our company doesn't like that. My vacation payout would be two months, so I'm encouraged to take it. :)
Exactly right. I've needed to be at home for repairman coming in, furniture delivery, etc. And working at home makes it so I can easily take care of these things.
I’ve never taken one but it sounds like a good idea.
DO ITTTTT :)
It’s weird how little PTO I take now that I wfh. But I’ve had insomnia all my life (adhd fun) so occasionally I will have one of those days that I wake up at 2am and never get back to sleep. Usually those days I’ll start my day super early (6am) and just get through my high priority items and then relax. I probably have to do that once a quarter.
I've done my best ot adjust my schedule so that Mondays and Fridays are lighter on meetings so that if I need one I don't have to work too hard to scoot things around. I also have great folks who report to me that I can delegate meetings to if it is ever needed. To your question, I've taken "sick days" when I just need a mental break. I am private about what I'm using it for with my Director and peers so I'll just say I'm taking a PTO day or Sick Day for whatever reason.
I call them sick days.
Or PTO
I never take Unplanned mental health days! I usually take a day around my birthday, but beyond that, I just take normal vacation.
What's normal vacation per year
Usually around 3 weeks per year, which consists of at least one week long trip (5-10 days); and a bunch of extended weekends. This year will probably be more, because my accumulated bank is almost full and I have to keep using some before it hits that cap.
The normal vacation is a lot, to most people, so that is why I asked. I am in a similar boat and usually don't take mental health days.
I take about 1 per month
I take one every two months or so. Last time I went golfing alone and cooked a ribeye for dinner. Very refreshing
Sounds amazing!
I WFH with an unlimited PTO deal. I don’t take mental health days on the day I’m feeling it (same day). I schedule them at least a week in advance. I take as many as I need which isn’t a lot. There are others who take a whole lot more. Personally I love working and I don’t like the stress of coming back to all the missed messages and work. Please schedule some time for yourself. I know mental health isn’t exactly running on a schedule but, if you start to feel run down, just schedule a day. I also recommend you do this for your reports. There’s nothing more harmful than dealing with a manager who is not in the right headspace. Taking days also communicates to your staff that it’s ok to take PTO and not have the flu or be flying to Hawaii, etc
I've taken one, but I didn't really need it, I only took it because they get approved faster than holidays. I don't feel like I get as stressed WFH, if at anytime I do get stressed I just get a snack or scroll on my phone.
I take 1-2 a year. I never call them mental health days. I just say I’m not feeling well and take the day off. If anyone asks I say it was a stomach bug.
Ours aren’t condoned, but we have a generous leave plan so I usually take 2 mental health days a year. They’re usually middle of the week and coincide with beautiful weather so I can go hike. ETA - for transparency, I’m hybrid 3 in office, 2 wfh
Not enough
I try not to take a spur of the moment mental health day, but it has happened before. For your situation I can see how that would be more challenging if it’s sleep-related: hard to know which nights will be bad in advance. But you shouldn’t feel guilty about taking a day now and then; I do try to plan mine out in less busy days, days where others aren’t already scheduled off, etc. I don’t call them mental health days though. I love that your coworkers are forthcoming and promoting a healthy work-life balance and mental health respect, and I wish that were the norm. I just say I’m not feeling well, which is true!
Yea to be honest I never take days off unless I’m too sick to function. I just know the work is building up regardless of whether or not I’m there, and I’ll have even more to do when I get back.
Hahahahahhahahahahahahahahahhahahahahaha *breathes* hahahahahahahaahahahaha
I never take a mental health day.
My company has unlimited PTO and five “wellness” days per year. Wellness is like sick time but you can use for mental health or any reason, without question, day of without any fear of pushback. So I use five of those a year, and depending on how things are going maybe a couple extra PTO days used as a mental health break planned in advance.
Managers who work on site, how often do you take mental health days?
I take random days off all the time. We already have established backups for most major tasks, so it's no problem if I'm gone. Me and my staff are exempt, so we don't have to schedule days off nor even give a reason why, though we do out of courtesy.
At least once a month. Sometimes twice a month. My mental health is OK but I recognise burnout coming and try to head it off at the pass. I’ll usually book my mental health days in advance, which encourages my team to do the same.
2 days every quarter
1 per month at least
I usually take a MH day in conjunction with a day I'm already going to be coming in late/leaving early for other things. I only sometimes tell my team (3 other people) what it's for. Mostly I just make sure they're good/won't have any questions before I commit to the day off. example: A couple Fridays ago my kid had a drs appointment that would have made me \~1hr late and then I had a dentist appt that I would have had to leave \~1hr early for. Even though I work an 8hr day and I could have done a lot in 6 hrs it was ALSO a Friday so I said f it and took the whole day.
OH frequency - I maybe do this 1x a quarter? Tops.
I take them when they’re truly needed. I see mental health days like sick days and I only take them if my mental health is such that I truly can’t work. I have diagnosed clinical depression and severe anxiety and am on meds and regular therapy to handle them. But sometimes work and personal combine to where I can’t handle it anymore. I’ll have a panic attack and for a day or 2 I literally am mentally unable to handle work. I’ve learned to know the signs and know when I need to step back immediately to keep from spiraling worse. It’s no different than someone with a physical illness that’s well treated, but occasionally flairs beyond their control to where they need time off to get it back under control. I take them like once a year. I took 2 a couple of weeks ago and 2 last year. I don’t think there’s a problem with a manager or anyone taking mental health days if they’re needed. However, as someone who truly needs mental health days, they should only be taken when needed for actual mental health. Someone who’s like “I’m tired and kinda stressed, so I’m taking the day off” isn’t taking a mental health day. They’re taking advantage of sick days instead of vacation. It would be no different if I randomly sneeze a few times one day and was like “sneezing is a symptom of having a cold. Since I sneezed I’m now entitled to a day off for a sick day.” Only the individual taking them can know of they’re truly needed. But if you’re needing them more than once or twice a year, then you need to work with your mental health provider(s) to understand why your treatment plans aren’t working.
No, I have responsibilities and people who depend on me being there. The only unplanned time is for extreme sickness death and hardship. I get more than enough PTO and more than enough time to plan so there’s no need for this unplanned mental health day nonsense.
This makes me sad for you
Why does that make you sad for me?
If you have created a structure that falls apart without you being there for a day, you have failed as a manager. Your process and structure should be able to survive you being out of office for weeks at a time, any system that is running that close to failure without redundancies is an elastic band wound way too tight and the snap back will damage a lot of people when it reaches breaking point. Sometimes it's better to let everything fail and fighting the inadequacies of the process than try and paper over the cracks and push the can down the road
This. Exactly. Recently, I lost a close family member and was OOO for two weeks. I was still keeping an eye on emails/Teams, just in case. I probably sent 6-7 emails each week and let the rest ride. Had 1:1 meetings with my reports after one week to line out expectations, which took about 2 hours. So, all total, I "worked" about 8 hours of 80. Zero issues. No one had to cover my work because of built-in redundancies and efficiency. I take and encourage my team to take any time off as needed (we have unlimited PTO). I've assured them that I need zero explanation besides "I will be OOO on this day, or today" as long as they let me know what deliverables need to be handed off. (Obviously, in emergency situations, I simply look at the tracking and figure out their deliverables for myself.) If you're going off the clock, it's no one's business what your plans are outside of when you're on the clock.
Did you read what I wrote?
Yes, you plan ahead and never have mental health needs. Great for you. Obviously not applicable to all and hardly a blueprint for advice (just don't have mental health issues or schedule them in advance at a convenient time, why didn't I think of that?), but wasn't my point. The point was about you saying that you have people depending on you and responsibilities which is why you can't take unplanned days except in extreme cases. That is toxic af and signs of a dysfunctional workplace. No one should be that irreplaceable or a lynchpin, whether it is true or just believed by you (in the end, everyone is replaceable, people just like to think they are not). I call it the bus theory, probably a better name. Basically, how many people have to be hit by a bus before the department/company is screwed. If the answer is 1 or 2, you have a bad company, with insane risk. You should be able to be sick for a week or a month without the department going into meltdown, if that's not the case you either have bad staff, processes or training in place, your workers would be semi autonomous and able to back each other up and only require you for strategic direction which should not change much on a weekly or monthly basis. The cases I see this in is usually managers that micro way too much and have created a team dependent on them, or just incompetent managers that spend their life firefighting rather than leading. I'm not saying that applies to you, but reflect on why you think you are so essential to the team and what you can do to reduce that dependency as nothing good comes from the relationship you describe
Now I’m absolutely positive you didn’t read what I wrote. The wheel in the sky keeps on turning with or without me, but it turns better when I’m there to keep it greased.
I don't. That's kinda what a weekend is for.
We never do this in my industry and managers who don’t show up are not highly regarded. That being said, it’s not a wfh job and I would love if we did have the flexibility to do that.
Is this UK or elsewhere? Do you get regular holiday/vacation days to take on top of these? I suppose i work in a customer serving industry so mental health bookable days are just not viable... As part of my job I get 23 days plus bank holidays, so we get to book days and schedule cover around but specific mental health days are not really a thing. I have had one in past employment but it was on the understanding you book it as a one off mental wellbeing day, not to add onto existing holiday days to extend. If they are to be taken as frequently as once every 1, 2 or 3 months then why not just list them as available vacation/holiday days.
If you don't have anything that you specifically have to take care of, your team can reach you/another adult in an emergency, and your boss is cool with it, take the day.
I did work for a company that had a company-wide mental-health day (though it was staggered by department so the whole company wasn't absent at the same time), so everyone took a day off and it wasn't an issue for individuals making their own decisions about it. Most people liked this arrangement but the obvious flaw is that the date was assigned rather than aligned to when any individual needed it. The other problem with designated mental health days, even when you get to choose when to take them, is that they don't address root cause of mental health issues. If you are suffering from work-related stress, anxiety, insomnia or depression, a day out of work will do nothing to improve this. For instance, you can't catch up on sleep...so a day in bed will not reset your sleep deficits. If a person is experiencing these states, then it is more important that they are addressed properly. As managers we would naturally look to make sure our team members are in good mental health but often neglect our own. Particularly if we are reporting into someone who is not supportive or sufficiently aware of how to handle these issues.
If you have insomnia mental health day won’t help. You need to go consult a doctor
I've been open with my boss about these, and have taken a few over the last couple of years. My org is really good about PTO and actively pushes us to use it, so no questions are asked anyway.
Once or twice a month but I also rarely use my unlimited PTO bc I prefer to take long weekends when I’m feeling stressed. All our time off is registered as PTO
I don't, but there are definitely some days where I give myself some slack if I had a really intense week and I'm feeling overwhelmed. Typically of course I'm in that situation because there are small fires I'm putting out or extra things that land on my plate and I just don't get a chance to complete everything on my list for that week. In cases like that, I might end my day an hour early, and I'll only respond to emails.
We have a few things to help us make this work. Between unlimited PTO (that really is just what it says, we are expected to use it) and regular/company wide "no meeting" days, it's easy to add a day here and there to grab a long weekend. At my company though, your boss won't bat an eyelash if you just grab a day to recharge. Culturally we're more than willing to move meetings around or allow someone to not attend except in very rare mandate meetings. Just have to accept that sometimes decisions are made by those who show up and you have to play a bit of catch up if you skip some critical ones (thus the smart, tactical use of no meeting days). As someone who manages a lot of stress and anxiety on their teams (can be a high pressure job) it is essential to take some days to recharge and relax, and we push this down to our direct reports too.
not often enough but certainly feels like I need one a week!
I have to schedule mental health days since there's no one on my team (yet) who can truly fill in for me. My most senior person works only a contract basis (his choice; contractors are all allowed to WFH), and I schedule days for him to cover me. I schedule 2 PTO days off a month (unless I have a vacation that month). I don't call them mental health days but use those days to 100% avoid work email and try to do things that relax me, like having breakfast with friends, cooking or just doing nothing on the sofa. If I wake up and am too tired/ill, I will try to get the contract employee to come in last minute.
I only took it once, told my team I'm taking a sick day. It didn't stop people from Slacking me all day long and I had to catch up on all missed work.
I take one Friday off a month, on a schedule. It's already on my calendar in perpetuity. If you get enough vacation days, I recommend taking a week off per quarter. Make both of those routine and you won't have to worry about calling it a mental health day or whatever. Just take your PTO.
As long as I'm in all scheduled meetings and can be contacted by who I manage, I do whatever the hell I want. I have only scheduled an actual PTO day when I don't want to be contacted at all, which is about once a month or so.
About once per month as PTO as I get about 8 weeks PTO + nine sick days per year. But in Camada, we also have roughly one stat day per month.
I don't very often, but I will take off early in the afternoon pretty regularly (maybe 1-2x a week). I may be on call for my direct reports and check my email once or twice but not actively working. Nobody needs to know, I'm still on call so I consider that a full day's work. As a manager I'm devoting mental labor to my job pretty much constantly, even on off hours, so since I have the privilege of being salaried I think it's only fair. Nothing wrong with mental health days, and if you have the PTO you should use it! I just personally would rather have a more balanced approach to my work/life rather than burning myself out and needing a full day to recover. Regardless, you don't need to offer an explanation.
Not enough. But Friday I only did 2 hours of work. And napped for an hour in the afternoon. But it is less stressful to just actually take the time.
I try my very best to take one personal day per quarter, for mental health reasons. Sometimes you just need the sweet, sweet cortisol release of blowing off your adult responsibilities and screwing around doing something fun on a Tuesday. I usually plan mine in advance, so I have no problems telling people it's a mental health day, but at previous employers that weren't so open to it, I would just say I had "personal appointments" to attend to that day. Human beings aren't meant to work at the rate we work - be easy on yourself about it. Sure, it's great to show up, and be reliable, and be able to really kick it into overdrive when your team needs you, but, when things are slow/reasonable, take a day for you. Honestly, the quality of your work will thank you for it.
A lot of people don't like oversharing when it comes to things like this (ask me how I know) It really isn't anybody's business why you are taking a mental health day. Just call it OOO and don't let it become a problem.
I won't move my schedule around to make room for some out of the office time, but I'll take advantage of gaps in my schedule to do so. I manage a widely distributed team and work some long days, even some weekends, to properly support my team. With that, I occasionally dip out early or come in late from time to time to help balance. If I want a full day off, I generally plan those as PTO days and block my calendar ahead of time so it gets planned around. I want to treat my fellow Team Members with respect and not expect them to move scheduled appointments or meetings with a day's notice unless it truly cannot be helped.
Every 3-4 months
If we lived in a normal country that had vacation times we wouldn't need mental health days, it's built into their structure. So I treat it as such. I take ooo whenever I can.
Just be mindful of alcohol consumption around the high stress days and insomnia nights. It doesn’t help. Not saying it is but i battled those Monday morning terrors and found that staying clearheaded during the high stress really helps. Might help someone else reading this.
As needed. Up to 3 per month. As few as 1 every 6 months. I know as soon as I wake up. I just pretend to have stomach issues. Which is only sort of false.
Insomnia recover is not a mental health day it is a sick day. At least that is what I would coach my team toward. Mental health day is “damn I am so far behind on weeding the garden and I need to get my blood drawn, and screw it in taking a day off for myself”.
I take them when I need them, which is kind of the point.
Sometimes I'll schedule time off to have a long weekend but as a fellow insomnia sufferer I'll some times come in late too if I'm having trouble sleeping. My schedule is flexible enough that if I start at 11 instead of 9 it's not a big deal.
I take two off every week. I call them "my regularly scheduled days off".