At XOOR we are aware that work is only a part of life, and that the whole team needs to understand the importance of a break. For this reason, in our company we have a policy that guarantees our staff the possibility to enjoy their annual vacations.

The intention is to avoid getting lost in our daily routine that we end up being busy all the time. Working remotely can blur the lines between work and personal life, making it harder to manage our schedule and find room for family, hobbies, or relaxation.

Below we will tell you why vacations are fundamental in both a personal and work related sense. You will also understand what we mean when we talk about "paid vacation", and how we grant this benefit at XOOR: how to request vacation and when we can take it, how many days we are entitled to, how we can distribute them, and so on.

In this article:

Vacations are periods of time in which we put aside our obligations, whether study or work, in order to rest. We can take the opportunity to travel and get to know new places; spend more time with family or friends; or enjoy leisure time, sleeping a few hours more, taking up a hobby, or finishing pending tasks at home.

This switch-off from the daily routine is positive in several aspects. In the first place, it offers undeniable health benefits. It has been proven that taking your mind off work-related worries and problems significantly reduces stress, improving physical and mental health. According to a study conducted by researchers at Syracuse University (USA), vacations reduce the chances of suffering cardiovascular diseases related to work-related stress.

Secondly, vacations give us the opportunity to recover quality time to strengthen bonds with our partner, family, friends and others. On a day-to-day basis, due to busy schedules or accumulated fatigue, we postpone meetings with the people we love the most, sometimes without even realizing it. Having free days allows us to dedicate time to our beloved ones.

And thirdly, the rest provided by vacations helps us to "recharge our batteries" and return to our activities with more enthusiasm. In many cases, the moments of "doing nothing" lead us to clear our heads and then come up with new thoughts, ideas that allow us to unblock tasks or solve problems. This injection of energy favors the increase of our productivity.

As part of XOOR, we enjoy the benefit of paid vacation, an annual leave which becomes available six months after we join the company. If you're not from Argentina, you may be unfamiliar with the term "paid vacation”. Essentially, it refers to a time when an employee takes a break from work but continues to receive their regular salary, as they would if they were still working. The amount and frequency of payment remain the same as usual.

After the first six months of service with XOOR, we are entitled to vacation time in proportion to the number of days worked to date. When you have been with the company for one year, you are entitled to a total of 15 days off.

We can choose the way we take our days off depending on what works best for us. Perhaps it is convenient to make them coincide with the school break of our children, or our partner's days off. A good idea is to take part of the vacation in winter and the other in summer, to enjoy different climates and to be able to carry out different activities. Or take them all together in order to make a trip.

At XOOR, Argentina's national holidays are considered non-working days. As our calendar has several special dates that turn into long weekends, it is possible to "put together" our vacations with these days and thus achieve a good break without using many of our allocated days.

On the other hand, some people choose to make their weeks shorter and take, for example, some "sabbatical" Mondays or Fridays. What is not possible in XOOR is to "accumulate" the vacation days from one year to the next. This is because regular rest is extremely important for the health, as well as the productivity, of each member and the entire team.

At XOOR, the human resources team is always ready to help with any questions about how to take a vacation, how many days we’re entitled to, or any other related concerns. From an administrative standpoint, it's crucial to request vacation time with enough notice, so that teams can plan their work around ongoing tasks and projects. This allows us to maintain commitment to performance and meeting deadlines.

So, we just have to check in with our area leaders and HR before taking time off, and then just enjoy our well-deserved break!

If you want to learn more about the benefits of working at XOOR, we invite you to continue reading our blog articles. You can also follow us on Linkedin and Twitter, and subscribe to our YouTube channel!