How to Encourage Employees to Actually Use Their PTO

So why are nearly half of your employees planning to leave it on the table?

This isn't just a utilization problem. It's a culture problem. And summer is the ideal time to address it.

Related: 10 Strategies to Encourage Summer Employee Wellness

Why Employees Don't Use Their PTO

It's rarely about not wanting time off. More often, it's about what taking time off feels like.

Nearly half of employees say they feel guilty about taking PTO in the first place. That guilt doesn't come from nowhere — it's learned. It develops in environments where urgency is always high, where leadership doesn't model rest, where "always available" is quietly rewarded, and where coverage gaps make taking a week feel irresponsible.

The result: employees have a benefit they value deeply and don't use. That unused time carries a real organizational cost. PTO Exchange estimates the liability for unused PTO in the United States at over $1 trillion annually — roughly $7,600 per full-time worker. That accrual sits on your books as a liability, not an asset.

And on the human side, the cost is higher: burned-out employees, reduced engagement, and the kind of chronic depletion that leads to turnover. We break down exactly what that costs organizations in The Hidden Cost of Workplace Stress — and the numbers are hard to ignore.

What HR Leaders Can Do This Summer

Summer is the most natural moment to make a real push here. The cultural permission already exists — people expect to take time off in the summer. Your job is to remove the friction and reinforce the norm.

Normalize it from the top. This is the biggest lever. When senior leaders visibly take vacation — and talk about it — employees feel permission to do the same. Encourage managers to share when they're OOO, to set boundaries around their own time off, and to avoid messaging their teams while they're technically on vacation. Leadership modeling is more powerful than any policy.

Make coverage planning easy. One of the most common reasons employees delay or skip PTO is that they don't want to leave their team in a difficult position. Build simple coverage frameworks into your summer planning. When employees know there's a clear handoff process, taking time off feels less like abandonment and more like a normal part of how your organization operates.

Prompt employees to schedule PTO now. Don't wait for people to come to you. Have managers proactively ask each team member to block time off before Labor Day. Scheduling is the hardest part — once it's on the calendar, people actually take it.

Create informal summer PTO momentum. Consider a "Summer Hours" initiative: early Fridays in July, a wellness day in August, or an organizationwide close around the Fourth of July. When the whole company takes time off together, there's no guilt about what's happening at the office while you're gone.

Watch for the guilt signals. If an employee says "I just can't take time right now" every quarter, that's worth a conversation. It often isn't about workload — it's about culture. Help managers understand how to have that conversation constructively.

Related: Your HR Summer Reading List

When Employees Do Take Time Off — Make Sure It Counts

The fact that 68% of employees admit to working during vacations tells us something important: taking PTO isn't enough if employees don't feel safe actually resting.

A few things help:

• Clear OOO expectations. Set the norm that being OOO means actually being OOO. Help employees write auto-responses with real boundaries, not hedges.
• Discourage "emergency" interruptions. Build a culture where managers only reach out during PTO for true crises — and be explicit about what that means.
• Celebrate rest. When employees come back refreshed, ask about their time off in 1:1s. Make rest visible as something the organization values — not something employees sneak in around the edges.

The ROI of Actually Resting

Rest isn't the opposite of productivity. It's what makes sustained productivity possible.

Employee well-being scores continue to decline — driven in part by companies pulling back on the flexibility and support that helped people thrive post-pandemic. The cost of ignoring rest is showing up in engagement scores, retention numbers, and health claims.

According to Gallup's 2026 State of the Global Workplace report, only 20% of employees globally are engaged. When employees can't disconnect, can't recharge, and feel guilty about using a benefit they've earned — that disengagement isn't surprising. It's predictable. For a full picture of what's shaping employee expectations right now, What Employees Are Asking for in 2026 is worth a read.

What a PTO-Positive Culture Actually Looks Like

It's not unlimited PTO policies (though those can help). It's not a one-time email from HR encouraging people to take vacation. It's a sustained, visible commitment from leadership that rest is part of the deal — not a reward for doing enough or a risk you take when things are slow.

It looks like managers who plan their own time off out loud, team calendars where PTO is treated as a protected block, and organizations that stop rewarding availability theater. The result is employees who come back from summer actually ready to work — instead of counting down the days to a break they never took.

If you're thinking more broadly about how to create a culture of wellness in the workplace, PTO culture is one of the most foundational places to start.

FitOn Health helps organizations build cultures of wellbeing that go beyond perks — with premium workouts, health education, and programs your employees will actually use. Let's talk about what that looks like for your team.