Managers often pay lip service to the concept of employee burnout without taking proper steps to keep it from happening to their employees. Here’s some data that could get them to change that.

A four-year study, recently published in the Harvard Business Review, looked at what would happen to employees when they were required to take vacation time.

Employees of 12 consulting teams at the Boston Consulting Group were forced to take scheduled time off each week, ranging from a full day of vacation to not working after 6 p.m. one night a week (the consultants frequently work long hours after they get home).

The results: The benefits of mandatory time off went beyond the obvious prevention of burnout. Employees said they came to back to work refreshed after a short break and were more productive. But, perhaps more importantly, teams said the required time off forced them to come up with ways to work more efficiently, and now their work gets done more quickly.

Few companies are likely to actually require employees to take vacation time. But as the study shows, managers might want to avoid giving employees the impression they should never take time off.

Tags: Boston Consulting, efficiency, Harvard Business Review, productivity, time off