As Americans suffer from “vacation starvation”, employees in Britain — where annual leave allocation of 20 days is not uncommon — are so fearful of being forgotten that they are forgoing their breaks.
Executives are putting their holidays on hold as workplace pressures mount and the spectre of redundancy rises, according to research by the Chartered Management Institute.
Job insecurity and financial cutbacks mean that one in four of over 1,400 people surveyed will cut back on holidays this year. Thirty four per cent say their workload’s too heavy and 49 per cent don’t want to let clients down.
As only 16 per cent of employers offer cash in lieu, some are taking their holiday — but spending it on “redundancy-proofing” training and development courses. Or they constantly check in to read work email or pick up voice messages.
Worst hit, according to separate findings by Continental Research, are the UK’s small business bosses. Among the senior executives at companies bringing in less than £1m a year, less than half plan to take time off, with declining trade and limited finances keeping them tied to their desks.
Perversely, both studies found that respondents were all in favour of others taking a break — in the CMI survey, a large majority claimed to recognise the positive effects of a holiday on productivity and innovation.
What’s more, line managers who have the nerve to leave their desks this summer will do their teams a favour: the CMI survey says that 57 per cent of employees look forward to such breaks, which afford them the opportunity to take on more responsibility while their manager is away. (That may be what insecure managers are afraid of.)
But whatever CMI pollsters say, the results indicate what the long-hours culture in British — and US — companies has been telling us for years: managers have yet to be truly convinced that work-breaks enhance productivity and performance. Until more compelling evidence comes to light (or it stops raining) the coat-on-the-back-of-the-chair mentality will remain.
