In the mid-year, it is quite normal to talk about and take a vacation. Yet, hectic days at the office prevent everyone to take some time off. The environment at some companies discourages it, and many employers do not provide paid vacation time.

In fact, new research finds that employees who take all of their vacation are more productive and increase their chances of getting promoted. Not taking a vacation hurts employees and hurts the company. Skipping vacation time as a way to climb the corporate ladder faster has been found to be ineffective; a new study has found that employees who take a vacation are more likely to get promoted and get a raise.

Shawn Achor, the bestselling author of The Happiness Advantage and Before Happiness and founder of consulting firm GoodThink, writes about how people who take time off excel at work. People are using less vacation time today compared to any point in the last 40 years.

That is unfortunate given that vacation helps the entire company –from the employee’s mental state and productivity, to the company’s bottom line.

See: Taking a Sabbatical

Take All of Your Vacation Time

Project: Time Off’s study found that employees who take all of their vacation time increase their chances of getting promoted and getting a raise by 6.5 percent, compared with people who leave 11 or more days of paid vacation unused.

But the benefits are not solely for the workers. If your employees take time off, they will perform better. In his book The Happiness Advantage, Achor mentions research that found when “the brain can think positively, productivity improves by 31 percent, sales increase by 37 percent, and creativity and revenues can triple.”

After decades of research on the topic, Achor concludes “the greatest competitive advantage in the modern economy is a positive and engaged brain.”

But to be truly engaged, your brain needs a break, Achor says. If you offer paid vacation, but your environment doesn’t support people actually using it, you are actually taking away benefits you promised them.

Achor found that four out of 10 employees say that they can’t use paid vacation because they have too much work. But as a HR leader, you know that happy employees are more productive and collaborative, Achor says. So why would you hamstring your workers’ happiness and hurt your bottom line?

Here is to encouraging your employees to take time off and to a more productive and happy workforce that will help your company perform better. Not only does employee retention increase if you encourage them to use all of their vacation time, employees who don’t use it can suffer from burnout.

See also: Reasons Why It’s Time to Take a Vacation, or At Least a Nap

Source: Inc