The summer break, as well as the New Year, are moments in the year when we feel like leaving everything behind, worries, questions, everything that can hinder us to move forward. We often tell ourselves that we will solve all our worries "when we get back" thinking that it will be easier, or even that they will have magically disappeared. As if taking a plane, the car, or turning the page of a calendar could erase everything, and make it go away.

This is at least true on the surface. During the vacations, everything seems simpler. We wipe the slate clean of the last few months. As Madonna would say in her hit song “Holiday” “it’s time for the good times, forget about the bad times”. In my jargon, we would say that we repress. Repression is a very effective defense mechanism and probably the one that is the most commonly shared. So to wipe the slate clean is good, pleasant, and often very useful. But what we have repressed has the unfortunate tendency to come back later, sometimes in other forms. And in the case of summer vacations, most often at the beginning of the school year. What we thought had been resolved, because it was locked away in the depths of our memory, has in fact not disappeared.

The return from summer vacation is often difficult. Fortunately, we are refreshed and rested, but the back-to-school blues exists and affects many people. In my practice, it is usually a very busy time. Indeed, we have to get back to our routine, the sun is still shining but we are mostly indoors, and above all, the more or less great difficulties before the vacations remain unresolved.

To allow your employees to leave with an even lighter heart, we think that it can be interesting and actually very useful to take stock of the current year. Asking a few questions about the way each person experiences work can lead to an assessment and an awareness of what could be put in place at the individual and collective level to make the coming year lighter.

So before dancing and singing "Holiday" by Madonna, perhaps it would be interesting to look in the rear-view mirror for a few more moments. We propose a quick and varied survey on the theme of vacation departures and what we leave behind in order to prepare for the next year. This will help to make a success of not only the vacations but also .... the return!