It should be part of company policy, that email access while you are on vacation, or taking a personal day, should be cut off. Any competent IS worker can make this happen. I realize that emergencies can happen, but those phone calls need to come from police departments, fire departments, or legal departments.

If employees are checking their work email 'staying connected to work', while they're on vacation, they are either workaholics, or have NO life outside of which; which in and of itself, is unhealthy.

I'm sure that the presidents/CEOs of many companies, delegate responsibility to a VP, or someone one-step lower, when they take a vacation or personal day.

Karan- I am from Europe and I could not agree more- I take my vacation very seriously:)
I agree with the first post as well- I think that the comfort with being out of touch with your day-to-day responsibilities depends to a large extend on the people you are working with. I feel very fortunate to be a part of a professional, supportive, and reliable Generalist team who will cover for me in case of my absence. Therefore, my out of office message always lists name of my colleague/s who can handle emergencies in my absence. This of course comes with great communication, teamwork, trust, cross-training, and knowledge sharing among the members of the team (one-on-ones with your manager, weekly team meetings). The benefit is that each of us can fully disconnect from work when on vacation.

I have a couple of other interpretations about staying/not staying connected.

Those with well trained, trusted subordinates can relax while disconnected from the office. Those without great people working for or with them can't.

I could not have related more to this article if i was not in my current position. I joined my job in Finland in the month of July and without a bit of exaggeration - THE OFFICE WAS LITERALLY DEAD. Everyone was out on a vacation, either with their families or a personal trip outside Helsinki in search of solitude. This past month has been quite a different experience and i realized that Europeans in general take their holidays rather seriously. Partly because of the severe and gloomy second half of the year that they have to face. Now, this is definitely a healthy habit, just in order to recharge yourself from your mundane work life. But there is another side to this too. With an increasing pressure of continually improving ROIs and cash flows, these vacations do cause an interruption in the daily operations of respective organizations. And therefore i guess people who are in the critical decision making positions which can have an impact tend to be more involved with their work even during vacations. Rest, can afford to have a totally cut-off break and throw their I phones in their closets for a while. During my Master's i came across several articles regarding how people are taking less and less vacations these days. I would love to see how this pattern evolves over time as my career progresses, as increasingly every company is competing with companies in workaholic US, China and India where even 24 hours are less in a day. And that changes the company's competitive landscape and frantically reduces the time-to-enter-market ratio for their products and services.

great blog. Everyone needs to "Sharpen the Saw" every once in a while and shut it down from time to time. I just picked my "Auto-Responder"....."gone sailing....see ya when I see ya" - Thanks Paula!