Do you end up working longer days after taking a vacation?
Forty-one percent of employees in a recent survey said that they have avoided taking vacation or reduced their time off out of fear that too much work would await them upon their return.
The poll conducted by Accountemps, a division of Robert Half, a staffing firm, also found that nearly a third of U.S. employees reported taking less vacation than they desired because they worried about their coworkers having to make up for the work they were missing.
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Another 41 percent said that even on vacation, they check in with their office to see what's going on. Among millennial employees, over a third say they check in at least once a day.
"Thanks to 24/7 email access via smartphones, the lines between work and personal time are becoming more blurred, especially while on vacation," said Bill Driscoll, district president for Accountemps. "It's important to take a break from your inbox and use your vacation time to relax, so you can return to work with renewed energy."
Employers appear split on the extent to which they encourage workers to take time off. Just under half of employees report having managers who prod them to take a vacation.
Even though Americans enjoy much less vacation that workers in other western countries, most employees do not think their PTO is insufficient, although women are apparently more sensitive to the subject than men. Only a quarter of men say they don't get enough vacation, while 40 percent of women say the same.
The survey appears to suggest that many workers may not regard the trend companies offering unlimited vacation or otherwise very generous vacation policies as life-changing. Simply put, many workers don't appear to particularly desire weeks and weeks off from work, either because they don't know what to do with the time or because they fear the professional consequences of taking their mind off the job.
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