Almost 50% of 18-24 year olds continue to work, even while on holiday, our survey has found.
We recently conducted a survey of over 500 UK citizens and found that 20% of the UK population continue to stay in communication with work while holidaying.
What's more shocking is that the survey uncovered that almost half of 18-24 year olds remain hard-wired into work communication, even while holidaying. Match this with the worrying statistic that half a million UK workers are already suffering with work-related stress and you have a recipe for disaster with millennials not taking enough time away from work to help reduce the chances of burnout and work stress.
Conversely, those over the age of 45 were much less inclined to communicate with work while on holiday, with 89% saying that they wouldn't communicate with work.
We also found that only 17% of Brits are actually using all of our work holiday entitlement to take a holiday. The rest of us? Close to 40% use between five and 10 days of that entitlement to actually get away from it all and have a genuine holiday, and 16% use a measly one-five of their entitled holiday days.
Millennials have also have been found to waste six days of their annual leave on chores. That's a quarter of their holiday entitlement wasted on chores and life-admin.
The affects that not taking a break from work can vary between mild Sunday dread and complete and utter burnout, health impacts of which include:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Irritable
- Nausea
- Headaches
- Fatigue
- A lack in confidence
- Indecisiveness
- A lack of motivation
- Gaining/losing weight
The prospect of holidaying with our colleagues isn’t something that thrills us either, with just under 65% of Brits saying no to jetting off with the people they work with. The most likely group to holiday with their workmates are divorced men, 53% of whom would be happy to holiday with colleagues.
The data also discovered that the older we get, the less inclined we are to go on holiday with work colleagues, too.
Naturally, this is having a damaging affect on workers throughout the UK. But not going on holiday isn’t just compounding work-induced stress, as found in a study a couple of years ago.
It found that those who don’t go away on breaks have higher blood pressure and a lower quality of sleep.
And the benefits? It found that the benefits of holidaying lasted at the very least, a fortnight longer than the trip itself.
How you can turn off from work while holidaying
So you know that staying hardwired into work even while holidaying is bad for you. But what can you do to help ensure that you’re switched off?
Communicate
Speak to work before you leave for your holidays. Set boundaries on communication and when you feel you should be contacted. You don’t want emails and phone calls dropping in for every little issue, so tell colleagues that. They should be able to take responsibility for much of your workload while you’re away.
Speak to your boss directly, too. Tell them that you’re using your holiday to get away from work and unwind, not to send emails from the other-side of the world!
Put your out of office on
Don’t forget to turn your out of office on. And don’t just stick on detailing the dates you’re away. State that you won’t be checking emails or replying for the duration of your holiday and give them the contact details of someone that they can contact while you’re away.
Remove your work email from your phone
Many of us are as addicted to checking our emails as we are checking our social media. So remove your work emails from your phone. If you still have the option to open them while you’re sunning it up, chances are you’re going open, read, and reply. Which isn’t relaxing!
Make plans
For many of us, a holiday is all about lazing about in the sun. But for those of us that spend a lot of time working, sitting around doing nothing can prove hard. And so we turn to our devices to find work.
Make plans for each day of your holiday so that you have something that’ll occupy your mind. Those plans could be anything from a long walk down the beach to full on activities like bike riding, rock climbing, or whatever else might be on in your area!
Don't feel bad
Many of us work our socks off and feel that our company and our clients rely on us to get stuff done. But that doesn’t mean you should feel bad for taking some time off. Everyone can suffer from burnout. So don’t be harsh on yourself when you’re spending two weeks away from the work lazing in the sun. Recharging your batteries will make you happier and more productive at work!
As work-related stress increases we need to take ownership of our own health. Using a measly 1-5 days holiday, like 16% of the working population do, to take a genuine break from work isn’t enough. And keeping plugged into the work lifeline while you’re supposed to be relaxing doesn’t help alleviate any of the stresses we’re under, either.
