Is quiet vacationing harmless, or toxic? HR leaders sound off
Quiet vacationing is a major workplace trend this summer for many workers in hybrid arrangements. It’s essentially when an employee takes a vacation without formally requesting time off or informing their supervisor. Instead, they’ll work a bit remotely from wherever they’ve traveled to, then log off and enjoy their vacation time.
About half of workers have, or have considered, taking a quiet vacation this year, according to a survey conducted this July by Monster.com that included responses from over 2,000 US workers. About 15% admitted they have lied to their boss about their whereabouts while on a quiet vacation, that survey found.
HR experts have some differing opinions on whether quiet vacationing is benign — so long as workers are still productive and accessible, OK. Or is it a more problematic trend emblematic of a dysfunctional company culture with underlying trust issues.
Here are some perspectives on it from HR leaders.
Karoli Hindriks, CEO of Jobbatical, an employee relocation platform
“The fact that employees are concealing when they’re working abroad from their employer shows the dramatic gulf between the attitudes of these businesses compared to the wants and needs of their employees. There are plenty of progressive companies that are leading the way with policies like ‘work from anywhere’, sabbaticals, workcations and so on – policies that are designed to give workers the time and flexibility to travel internationally – so it’s no wonder that workers in less progressive companies feel they have to lie to get the flexibility that they want or need.
Fundamentally, work-from-anywhere policies are based on trust between employees and their employer. They work well with an entrepreneurial company culture where people are trusted to deliver outcomes rather than work a specific number of hours from a specific location. Ideally, a company should not care about where or when employees work as long as they meet their KPIs, but that certainly requires discipline from both managers and employees.”
Meg Pittman, vp of people at dbt Labs, a collaborative software engineering platform
“Yes, quiet vacationing is very much a problematic trend. Many managers, especially first and midline, can be focused on input for the hours one works or tasks one is responsible for vs. the output, and they manage to this. The issue with this type of management is that it actually keeps the bar low for employees and is something really easy to game, which is why folks are “quiet vacationing.” If you know the tasks you need to complete and do it – irrespective of quality – why would you not think about gaming it? There’s no reward for exceeding the bar.”
David Rice, HR expert and host of podcast People Managing People
“It’s benign in the sense that if they get all their work done, it doesn’t really impact the business, but beyond that, on a people level it’s a symptom of a bigger problem. It indicates people can’t separate from work and they don’t feel comfortable or able to use vacation time. That could be a culture issue, or it could be a personal issue in that they don’t feel safe. When you feel on edge about job security all the time, you feel like you have to be on all the time, even on vacation, which is unhealthy and does nothing to address why you went on vacation in the first place, which is to take a break. People can be away from home and work at the same time, but vacation is meant to be vacation. This tells me they don’t know how or when to disconnect from work.”
Erefa Coker, founder of IMO interns, a remote recruiting platform
“The emergence of quiet vacationing – a practice where employees covertly take time off while maintaining the illusion of working – is more than just a passing trend. It’s a stark indicator of deep-seated issues within our contemporary work culture. On the surface, quiet vacationing might seem a benign act of self-care in a high-pressure work environment. However, this surreptitious behavior points to a more problematic undercurrent in employer-employee relations.
At its core, quiet vacationing is a breach of trust. It speaks to a work culture where employees feel unable to openly communicate their needs for rest and recuperation. This communication breakdown can lead to a toxic cycle of mistrust, potentially eroding team cohesion and organizational effectiveness over time. Moreover, the practice raises serious questions about workplace policies and management styles. If employees feel compelled to resort to deception to secure much-needed downtime, it suggests a failure in current leave policies or a culture that implicitly discourages taking time off.
The long-term implications of quiet vacationing are concerning. Beyond the immediate impact on productivity, it could lead to increased burnout, as employees fail to fully disconnect from work. This can create a culture in which rules are often broken, leading to a disconnect between official company policies and actual workplace practices.
While the desire for work-life balance driving this trend is understandable, the solution lies not in covert actions, but in fostering open dialogue about work expectations, employee well-being, and the importance of genuine time off.”