The employee who has not taken leave for five years
The leave request was completed.
The start date, the end date, the number of days. Everything was written. Only one signature was missing.
She folded the sheet and placed it in the drawer on the right side of the desk.
Not because she did not want to leave.
Quite the opposite. She longed for two weeks when her phone would stop ringing, when she would no longer have to reply to emails, and when she would no longer hear the retort she heard almost daily:
“Could you just take a quick look at this?”
The next day an emergency arose.
In a week the inventory was due.
After that the audit began.
A colleague announced their resignation.
Another project appeared.
Then another.
When she opened the drawer again, the leave request was already yellowed at the corners.
Another year had passed.
In almost every company there is such a person.
They are not necessarily a director.
They are not always the best paid.
Often they do not speak much at all.
Yet if one morning they do not arrive at work, the organisation starts to function differently.
A client no longer receives a response.
A payment is delayed.
A contract remains unsigned.
A report can no longer be finalised.
Everyone looks for them.
In the early years, this situation is seen as proof of professionalism.
“I couldn’t manage without them.”
I have heard this sentence hundreds of times.
And every time I hear it, I ask myself the same question.
Is it a compliment or an alarm signal?
Because, beyond the sincere appreciation a valuable professional deserves, there is a question few managers ask themselves in time.
How did the company come to depend so heavily on one person?
The answer is never simple.
Sometimes the organisation has not had time to train a replacement.
Other times, that person has quietly and without protest taken on everything others did not know or did not want to do. Whenever a problem arose, they solved it. Whenever someone left, they assumed more responsibilities. They learned systems, understood clients, memorised procedures, and became—without necessarily intending to—the linchpin of the entire organisation.
Yet there is another explanation, one rarely discussed.
The person is afraid to leave.
Not because they have nowhere to go.
Not because they cannot afford the holiday.
But because, somewhere along the way, they have begun to believe that their professional worth is measured by the fact that they are indispensable.
It is a fear few admit to.
“What if they discover they can manage without me for those two weeks?”
“What if someone else learns what I do?”
“What if my position is no longer so secure?”
These are questions rarely voiced aloud.
Yet they exist.
And they shape behaviour.
Paradoxically, the same fear is sometimes fuelled by the organisation itself.
Managers value constant availability.
They call during holidays.
They contact in the evenings.
They praise employees for “never saying no.”
Without realising it, they send an extremely powerful message.
We need you precisely because no one else can do what you do.
At first, the message flatters.
Over time, it becomes a burden.
And this burden is not the employee’s alone.
It is the company’s as well.
Because healthy organisations are not built around indispensable people.
They are built around processes that allow valuable people to breathe.
Annual leave exists not only to restore working capacity. Unbeknownst to us, it is one of the best tests of organisational health.
If a person can be absent for two weeks and the work continues smoothly, it means the organisation has learned to distribute responsibility, to document knowledge, and to train people.
If, however, the mere idea of taking leave triggers panic, emergency meetings, and a chain of phone calls, the problem is not the leave.
The problem is the company.
Over all the years I have worked with organisations, I have noticed one interesting thing.
Employees who have not taken leave for five years are not, as a rule, the most comfortable.
Quite the opposite.
They are the people you rely on.
That is precisely why the risk so easily goes unnoticed.
Because their performance conceals a fragility that no one has time to see.
After reading these lines, a colleague’s name may have come to mind.
You may even have thought of yourself.
If you are a manager, ask yourself what would happen in your company if that person did not show up on Monday morning.
Not in a year.
Not after you have found a replacement.
On Monday.
If you are the person who has not taken leave for five years, try looking at the situation from a different angle.
The fact that the organisation cannot function without you is not always the best proof of your professional value.
Sometimes it is proof that you have ended up shouldering alone a responsibility no mature organisation should leave on one person’s shoulders.
And this is not a leave problem.
It is a problem of leadership, of management, and ultimately of responsibility towards people and towards the company’s future.