When it comes to taking a holiday, it's best to be Finnish, and (not quite) the worst to be American. A new study ranks countries by their paid time-off policies.
In Finland workers must get a minimum of 30 days paid vacation plus up to 14 paid holidays a year! That makes it the country with the most generous paid time off laws out of 49 nations surveyed by human resource consulting firm Mercer.
Besides getting less vacation than workers in many other countries, Americans often don't use all the time that they do get, and what vacation they take is spent in small slices and often in contact with the office, according to findings from other studies. Unlike in most other countries, there is no federal law mandating that companies pay employees for time off or that they grant them a minimum amount of vacation days unpaid.
So, Minna, can you give us any more skinny on paid vacations in your beautiful country?
That sounds really great! A happy, rested employee is a good employee!
ReplyDeleteI agree! The more resting time the better!...I wonder what my boss would think of this..LOL :)
ReplyDelete...Considering you are lucky enough to have a one permanent job instead of a lot of short term jobs, because then you can pretty much kiss those holidays goodbye.
ReplyDeleteBut how those long holidays are possible considering you have that permanent job... Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've heard that in the States the work you leave on your desk when you leave for a holiday is still waiting for you when you come back -and even keeps piling up during your holiday, whereas in Finland while you are on holiday others do at least some of your work, too, while you are gone and when someone else goes for a holiday it's your turn to do some of their work.
http://www.mol.fi/mol/en/01_ministry/01_legislation/index.jsp
http://virtual.finland.fi/
Minna, I think it would depend on the type of job you have and the company, etc.. I do know people who come back to all the work they left before they went on vacation and so have to work ahead before they leave and then catch up when they get back. Other places are like you described - if there's an entire department devoted to that job and others know how. And some jobs just can't be left undone, and that's universal, like trash collection and retail positions. But perhaps you're talking only of corporate jobs.
ReplyDeleteThere was some program about this months ago... They talked about why people in States in all kinds of jobs have short holidays. And yeah, there are jobs that can't be left undone, and either those who stay at work place do some extra while others are on holiday (just ask the nurses in Finland if they like working during the holiday season at summer) or you hire some extra staff during the holiday seasons so that the permanent staff (not everyone at the same time, of course) have got the possibility to go for a holiday. Also, maternity leave here is quite long. And the daddies have a possibility to get some paternity leave, too, but if I remember correctly, mommy and daddy can't get their leaves at same time.
ReplyDeleteOh, and right now we are having one of the holidays, Midsummer, that pretty much empties out the work places and towns because everyone who can have gone to their summer cottages.
ReplyDelete:::sigh::: Summer cottages, what a lovely picture that paints in my imagination. Do you or does anyone you know have a summer cottage?
ReplyDeleteI would love to take a vacation ti visit you and research, then write a book set there. That would be a dream. I could learn the history and do a historical....
...dreaming of a summer cottage in Finland....
Do I know anyone who have a summer cottage? Let's see... At least one of the neighbours have one, my sister and her family have one near Helsinki and they built another one here on dad's land with my brother...
ReplyDeleteWell, cool! Send a picture!
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately I don't have any digital pictures of the summer cottages I mentioned, but here are some summer cottages:
ReplyDeletehttp://images.google.fi/images?hl=fi&q=kes%C3%A4m%C3%B6kki&btnG=Hae&lr=lang_en%7Clang_fi&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi