How to ask for and take time off without getting penalized

Summer is here. Even though most workplaces are not on an academic calendar, summer is still a time that many people choose to take vacations. Some of that decision is pragmatic—families with school-age children can bring their kids with them on a trip over the summer more easily than during the school year. Some of it is just that summer feels like a time when vacations ought to happen. If you’re worried about taking time off, you’re not alone. People often do not use all of their allocated vacation time, and companies that enable employees to take as much time off as they would like find that their employees don’t take many vacations. Breaks from work are important. Vacations are good for your mental health. Getting time away from work to reconnect with important people in your life and to change up your routine is important. It helps to prevent burnout, strengthens your relationships, and can also make your work more productive. That said, there are a few things to consider as you think about how to request time off and to take it without causing disruptions at work. 1. Pay attention to local norms If you worry about asking for time off, start by paying attention to what other people are doing. Get a feel for the amount of time that people typically take off and the size of those chunks. Are people taking a week at a time? Are there folks who take longer vacations? You want to know what is typical so that you know whether you’re asking for something that your supervisor might think is out of the ordinary. If you’d like to take a two-week vacation and nobody ever seems to do that, then you may want to prepare a little extra justification with your request. If that is a common thing for people in your workplace to do, then you don’t need so much framing around the request. But when you do ask for time off, do it with confidence. You are not asking your employer for a favor. You are doing something that is part of your benefits package, and your workplace should res