Taking a month off work is common practice across European businesses in summer. When will other countries take note?
Every August large parts of continental Europe switch off. Shops shutter and people spend extended time with friends and family. Entire countries essentially have a well-earned break.
This comes as no surprise and yet, as this mass vacation rolls around every year, I react in much the same way. I rage and huff and call out this particular arrangement as absurd, unworkable and totally unjust.
However, it is difficult not to admire a society that collectively decides a large part of summer deserves protecting. Furthermore, it raises an obvious question: why haven’t the UK, US and other nations got a grip on this August situation? How haven’t we, on our productive patches, come to some sort of group consensus on how to handle the month? Could we not simply agree that it would be better if we all took the month off?
Economically, I haven’t thought this through. I assume that there would initially be some sort of economic chaos. Industries combusting and such in the first few years. But, eventually, recovery? Lessons learned for the next summer? A slightly more honest relationship with work perhaps?
But forget all that: just imagine the fun to be had if an entire month was dedicated to downtime. Oh, the places we’d go. Surely this would be a good thing? Some offices – usually the sort with little work being done in – have launched “Summer Fridays”, where workers are granted an early finish somewhere around 15.00 or earlier if they’re lucky. “Days Off for Weeks on End” has more of a ring to it, though.
Over the channel, France backs its summers with law as well as custom. Since 2017, the droit à la déconnexion has required French companies above a certain size to negotiate formal policies on out-of-hours contact. The legislation essentially says, “Your time outside of work is not the company’s property – relax.”
But none of this is really about law or policy anyway – it’s about trust. It’s about whether a country trusts its own citizens to behave accordingly, to not take the piss. France and Italy decided that rest is vital, something to be protected. The UK and the US still treat rest as something that’s a bit embarrassing.
For all our admiration of European culture, neighbourhood squares, cafés and long lunches, we rarely consider the elements that make those relaxed things possible. They begin with a shared acceptance that there is more to a successful society than perpetual availability.
Of course, not every business could close, nor should they. But perhaps the rest of us could become a little more comfortable with the idea that the world won’t stop simply because we spend August out of the office.
If the door does open again to a better relationship with Europe, I’d like the UK to take more from it than a trade deal. Can we come to some sort of August Agreement?
Emily Bryce-Perkins is a London-based writer and Monocle contributor. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.
Further reading:
– History repeats itself, why not holidays? The case for taking a trip down memory lane
– Nine boats to buoy your summer months as temperatures hit the high Cs
– Embark on a grand tour of European retail with Monocle this summer
