By: Rachel Zieleniec
"Good news, team. We'll be closed from December 25 through January 1. Enjoy a well-deserved rest."
If you've sent that email, or felt grateful to get it, you're in good company. A year-end closure is a generous gesture and a great start. But if it's the only time your organization collectively rests, it isn't doing the job you think it is. Here's why, and what to do instead.
Time-off isn’t the same as rest
For many, holiday break is not actually restful. Well, at least not restful in the ways our bodies, minds and workplaces may need it most. It’s not restful in ways that will combat an ongoing burnout cycle, or strengthen our individual and collective creativity and productivity.
The last week of December is one of the most demanding stretches of the year, especially in the nonprofit sector. In a 2023 American Psychological Association poll, 89% of U.S. adults said the holiday season causes them stress, and 41% said their stress rises during the holidays compared with the rest of the year. Gift-buying, missing loved ones and family conflict topped the list.
Our society has created the conditions for workers to believe that end-of-year time-off will fulfill the innate need our bodies have for disconnection from work. Here's what "holiday time off" often holds:
Intensified caregiving
School is out, and childcare disappears. Aging parents or extended family arrive or need visiting. The invisible labor of the holiday season ends up falling hardest on women and on workers who are already stretched thinnest.Increased travel and hosting
Airports, long drives, guest rooms and meal planning. These are just additional logistics projects for already over-worked individuals.Experiencing financial pressure
Particularly in the nonprofit sector, many staff are not well paid or, at the very least, a living wage. Expecting rest during a season that’s built around spending can cause additional, unnecessary stress. Everything and everyone is at peak capacity, and costs are at an all-time high.Feelings of grief and loneliness
For people who have lost someone, or who are estranged from family, the holidays can be the hardest weeks of the year.Collective time-off, but only for some
For most nonprofits, December is the peak fundraising season. Staff close out campaigns right up to the break, then return to January reporting, budgets and grant deadlines. Additionally, this time of year often doesn’t encompass the multitude of holiday traditions existing in our workplaces. Collective rest prioritized by a Christian calendar is only scratching the surface of its intended purpose across the workforce.
To be fair, holiday breaks can also offer an opportunity to disconnect from work without the need to utilize or access individual PTO. This is certainly one of the greatest benefits, but the actual impact on rest can be ineffective at best, and inequitable at worst.
So why do we settle for it?
If we know the holiday break works so poorly as restful time-off, why do so many of us accept it as sufficient? It’s likely because we've absorbed a set of stories about rest that serve our organization’s productivity calendar far more than they serve its people.
“Rest must be earned”
We learn early in our careers, especially in jobs that promote hustle as the only way, that rest is a reward for a lucky few who know how to access it, not a requirement for functioning humans. The holidays ultimately have become the prize at the end of the year's marathon. That framing makes rest something someone ‘deserves’ once they’re depleted, and not something they should access as a built-in practice before they reach that point.
“The calendar decides when we stop”
The holiday season is the one time our culture gives broad permission to pause. Because everyone else is pausing too, it feels legitimate in a way a random Tuesday off never does. We mistake social permission for actual rejuvenation during the holidays, and unfortunately workers and workplaces ultimately end up suffering the other 11 months of the year because of it.
“The holidays are peaceful”
Advertising, media and nostalgia sell the season as cozy and slow. The gap between that image and the reality of packed calendars and to-do lists rarely gets named. So when we come back exhausted, many assume they did the holidays ‘wrong’ or that it’s their fault for not feeling rested, rather than question what led to their experience in the first place.
“Mission comes first”
Nonprofit culture has long equated sacrifice with commitment. Overwork reads as dedication to your job. Access to true and ongoing rest becomes something reserved only for those who know how to navigate their personnel policies, or have autonomy over their schedule, or simply have a salary with benefits.
Which of these stories do you carry? Are they serving you, and your organization? If not, this is a good time of year to start telling yourself a better story.
Treat rest like infrastructure
At R&R: The Rest Of Our Lives we believe rest is organizational infrastructure. Infrastructure is planned, funded and maintained. It doesn't depend on the calendar or on individual onus. If you are an organization that already incorporates a collective break into your work cycle, here’s a few next steps to strengthen that strategy:
Rest more than once a year.
Research shows frequent breaks protect well-being better than one long one. If you can only do one collective break, move it out of December. A spring or summer pause does something a holiday closure can't.Pick a time that's actually for rest.
A week with no pre-set family obligations, no high travel season, and no year-end campaign gives people time that actually belongs to them.Plan it well in advance.
Surprising people with last minute time-off closures can seem like a nice courtesy, but it can lead to workers paying a hefty ‘time-off tax’. Planning for a collective break lets the whole organization agree in advance what can pause, what deadlines move, and what partners and funders need to know. That way nobody spends the break covering or catching up.It’s modeled from the top
Data has shown that the positive effects of vacation on workers’ wellbeing quickly disappear upon resumption of work. In R&R’s evaluation of collective rest, we’ve found that when everyone at all levels pause their work - at the same time - no one comes back to a flooded inbox of internal emails, and no one feels guilty for being the one who stepped away. The return to work from a period of collective rest vs. individual PTO feels and looks immensely different.Not there yet? Start small.
If your organization has not yet incorporated a collective rest practice into its operations, the steps above may feel hard to reach. Encouragement to try out a quarterly ‘rest day,’ or even something as simple as a ‘no internal meeting day’ even if it’s just for the team you manage or are a part of. Every step - small or large - contributes to building a culture around shared responsibility for each other's wellbeing.
As you finalize next year's calendar, ask your team:
When will we rest together? And what do we want to rest from?
Holiday break can be part of your rest strategy. It just shouldn't be the whole thing.
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Rachel Zieleniec is the Chief Program Officer for R&R: The Rest Of Our Lives and is passionate about creating a future-of-work where rest is accessible for all, not just for a lucky few.