A study recently conducted by Panoramic Villas found that 20 per cent 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 per cent saying that they wouldn’t communicate with work
The American Psychological Association say that “the recovery process requires “switching off” from work by having periods of time when you are neither engaging in work related activities, nor thinking about work”.
They research also found that only 17 per cent of the British public are actually using all of our work holiday entitlement to take a holiday. The rest of the world? Close to 40 per cent use between five and 10 days of that entitlement to actually get away from it all and have a genuine holiday, and 16 per cent use a measly one to 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 per cent of British holidaymakers saying no to jetting off with the people they work with. The most likely group to holiday with their workmates are divorced men, 53 per cent 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.
The survey 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.
As work-related stress increases we need to take ownership of our own health. Using a measly one to five days holiday, like 16 per cent 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.
