Gotta love the crazy imagery of a guy in a sports jacket using his laptop on a beach. Speaks to how it is so hard for some folks to really separate themselves from their jobs when they are on vacation. In a piece titled "More adults work while on vacation than ever before" the folks at ZDNet speak to this phenomenon. Here is a clip from it:
I think that it begs the question of why do people act like this. Do you think that folks just really love their work and cannot take time away from it? Or is it more about fear (realistic or not) about losing their jobs or disappointing their employer? Or is it about employers putting demands on employees? Or is it simply about the web-connected nature of our corporate culture? What do you think? Can you relate? Is this the new normal for vacations?Clinicians and psychologists recommend taking regular breaks from the grind to re-energize and regenerate. In fact, if you look at the word "recreation," you can see it as "re-creation." Unfortunately, courtesy of the wonders of the digital world, fewer of us are taking complete breaks from work. According to Human Resource Executive Online, the folks at TeamViewer did a study about how people work while on vacation.
According to TeamViewer GM Holger Felgner, 61 percent of employed Americans will "spend time on work-related tasks during their summer vacation this year." That's up from last year, when only 52 percent of employees said they'd be on the grind while on vacation. For digital natives, the millennials out there, 79 percent say they'll need to take a work-capable device with them on vacation. [read more]
I think it is the new normal.
ReplyDeleteI think when the job market is slow employers take advantage of employee fears of losing their job, trying to find a new job etc.. When the cycle turns around and the job market is more open employees take advantage with more benefits and time off. I had a salary position in the 90s and my comp time usually resulted in an extra week of vacation every year when I already had insurance 100% paid for, paid sick and personal days, an employee rewards program based on company profits and occasional office parties just to say "thanks" to the employees. I watched those benefits and niceties for employees disappear at positions I held in the beginning of this century as the job market shriveled up and died.
ReplyDeleteWhere this is indicative, at least for now, of a new normal is as the difference in income at the very top and the rest of us gets wider, there is nothing to spend to make the economy and the job market better. At some point the peasants sitting on the beach in their suits with work to do will have to get the guts to revolt. Americans haven't had revolutionary guts (or brains) in a long time.
And that job in the 90s? The only work related anything on vacation was that our department members always sent a postcard.
DeleteGreat feedback Nani! I can relate to both sides of that coin.
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