So here you are, sitting behind your desk for 8 hours or more 5 times a week , for more than 5 years or more of your life.
On your spare time, you Google exotic and best destinations in the world.
You browse your Facebook News feed and watch with jealousy your friends’ foreign travels. Then you asked yourself – why in the earth I cannot travel abroad for a long time and experience life?
You realized further that you are getting much weaker each day at work. You get lower back pain, chest pain, gain weight, getting white hair, had eye bags, and getting bad skin effects due to stress and lack of rest.
Then you realized that you finally need a break from work and spare your time on thing you love to do – to travel. You felt that you deserve it anyway but how should you should tell your boss about it?
A lot of employees are struggling on how to finally crack the magic words to their bosses. “Sir, I need a much needed vacation.” Sounds good for a start, but hard to say in real life.
If you would like to take that adventure of a lifetime, you have to be ready to speak to your boss. And order to do that, follow these tips so you can have a smooth and productive conversation with him/her and will later on able you to book that flight to your desired destination.
1. Know the Rules
Before you prepare any reservations and bookings, make sure to consult your employee handbook to know your company’s guidelines when it comes to vacation. You have to be certain that your vacation request aligns with your company’s policy. This is a very good impression to your boss. Also, you can use the information when you are about to talk to your boss.
2. Know the Impact
Think what make sense about the workload. Consider what are the pending activities, meetings, projects, and other during or after the time you take your vacation. Reconsider if you can push your vacation if high-impact activities will be affected. This will also help you not to be distracted during the time of your trip.
Consider also if your colleagues need to handle your job and assess how your vacation will impact your team. Sure enough someone will cover your work but you have to make sure that they are ready for the additional responsibility.
3. Give Plenty of Notice
You definitely do not want to wait for three days prior to your long trip. If you love your company, and if you have a very good relationship with your boss, it is just right to care for the company that provided you your bread and butter.
More time of notice is always better than surprises. This will also give you time to finish your obligations, pending projects, and other tasks.
4. Ensure You Have a Plan
You have to make sure that you have a very strong reason why you wanted to leave for vacation. “I have been working all my life, and asking for 3-month vacation is just what I deserve.” Sure, this sounds very easy to say but having a plan will give you the confidence you need when you are about to talk to your boss.
Plan a meaningful travel – taking language lessons, doing volunteer works, joining photography groups and tour, or even attaining professional development courses. Others may include attending dance classes, living cross-cultural experience, or international cooking classes will make your trip very attractive to your employer and be easier for them to welcome you again when you get back from your trip.
Personally, I have a travel planner with me that indicates my itinerary for my trip. I share this to my boss. Having a black and white plan will give more conviction to your boss about your productive travel plan.
5. Practice Your Conversation With Your Boss
This may sound awkward for some but there is nothing wrong with practicing your conversation with your boss.
There is nothing more important than to pull out the best confidence on your decision to travel for a long period when you talked to your boss. Practicing your conversation will give you the confidence you need on this time. If you have no idea on what you want to do when you take that long vacation, it will be difficult for your boss to say yes. If you do not practice, tendency is that you may stumble or become nervous or shy and sound not convincing.
6. Pick a Good Day and Timing
Do not talk to your boss when he has very tight schedule for the day. It’s not a good idea to bring out your one-month plan to cruise the Caribbean when your boss just came out from back-to-back meetings and sleepless project management.
The best timing is during your scheduled face-to-face meeting on which you can discuss your professional development and personal development as well. After the meeting, I suggest that you also send him an email about what you have discussed. This will let him know that you are serious about making that life-changing move.
My Takeaways
There are instances wherein things might not turn out the way it should be – like your boss may not say yes for reasons such as peak project timeline, other members of your team are also doing the same thing, or limited staff resource from your team.
If your boss say no, it’s much important to give further earlier notice. But do not give up. Still plan your travel and be positive that your boss will say yes the next time.
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