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I spoke to an old mentor (retired now) and he shared that people treat you how you teach them to treat you. If you work during PTO taking calls on vacation then clients will expect you to always be on call. If you act out of fear of losing the client to a competitor and jump every time they call then you are telling them the service is a commodity and you only bring speed of response as a differentiator. He says reality is often different and even if the service is in the commodity side of the spectrum you can empower a manager/sr mgr to handle the client hand holding because commodity services don’t need partner level skills. I’m going to try to take that to heart and take more PTO and give more focus to family on PTO.
Spot on…. I also think it depends on practice and type of timelines and deadlines you have in your portfolio. Personally I don’t mind on PTO to respond to emails. I do draw a line where I don’t join calls or review deliverables. This has to be done before or has to wait until after. I take about 4 weeks a year but will admit it is never fully disconnecting. It is the change of scenery and much less work than usual that make it work out for me.
I do one week in the summer and take off two weeks around the holidays. During these times it helps me to check and respond to emails 30 min in the morning and 30 min at night mostly to delegate and or respond I’ll get back to them on my return. I don’t mind staying connected on that level as it actually reduces my stress and helps me relax during the rest of my time off.
About two weeks as well for me but it’s getting better. I have been more intentional lately such as blocking out my calendar way in advance to force PTO.
It’s important to relax and recharge. You’ve worked hard to get to this point and need to enjoy some of it.
Me and three colleagues from a larger firm started our own practice two years ago. I honestly can say in the first two years I’ve taken one vacation for four days and worked everyday. NOT GOOD. Struggling to find balance and also set an example for staff that we are not machines and need rest and time away. We have “unlimited” PTO but most people know what a joke that ends up being. We are actually considering starting a rule that you have to take a mandatory minimum of five days off a quarter. Not answering your question but more commiserating with you! I had a partner once tell me at my previous firm that it’s standard to let PTO expire and I just remember thinking what bullshit that whole thing was.
The problem is that we hurt ourselves when we take PTO or work during PTO. Clients are demanding and they need their work done so as a partner you need to take care of your clients / ledger. Some of them don’t care if you are on vacation. When I end up working while on PTO it frustrates me more as I never get charged up…….. this is one another aspect of public accounting that I don’t like ….. well too late now for me to do anything else.
Same here, probably struggle to get two full weeks. I really value the shutdowns now as the email traffic truly slows down. This year I will work during the summer shutdown because i am an audit partner on a public company and have a quarter to deal with. I really wish the shutdown was before and not after July 4 as I’m
sure many are in my situation.
I try to take all of my PTO (24 days) each year. I admit that I often work a few hours here and there while trying to take a week off, but that helps me with at least taking some time off (rather than skipping vacation completely).
Having strong senior mangers that run the business is the key. Make your team not be dependent upon you to get things across the line. This way time away can actually be time away. I’m not there yet. Not even close, but this is what I’m working towards.
Yeah where do we find them?
One method that helps me is to take all holidays that my clients are off/floating but our firm is still open. My clients are in financial services, so days like Columbus Day, Veterans Day, President’s Day, etc help me squeeze out a few extra PTO days when I know my clients will not be looking for me.
I had not taken more than a single day off other than major holidays like Christmas (still worked the 26th), four in total since January 2020 until last month. I worked seven days in June and took the rest of the month off to just be with my kids. So few summers left before college!
I take 6 to 8 weeks of vacation in a normal year, 2020 not being normal. I do check emails and return calls while on vacation, and sometimes I will work for a few hours. But I get to spend most of the day with my family and travel to different places. I took fewer vacations when I was a new partner.
Have to MAKE time for yourself and build a team below you that you can trust