Why Do Some People Not Take Holiday/Vacation?
I’ve been thinking alot recently about vacation and holiday taken from work. In the UK, statutory vacation is around 25 days per year, however not all employees opt to take it.
Why do they do this? For a number of reasons:
1. Responsibility. Their job places them with a high level of responsibility and with no immeadiate ‘stand in’ available, the employee is forced to work through their vacation to keep operations running. This is true of many small business owners.
2. Their bosses encourage them to not take the holiday. While forcing someone to not take up their holiday entitlement goes against the law – employees who are career conscious and very eager to stay in their bosses good books may comply with such implicit requests. Sometimes however, such pressure is engrained into the working culture, whereby everyone feels guilty for taking holiday.
3. They have something to hide. A famous matra goes that you should be very wary of people who never take any holiday. In financial firms such as investment banking practises, this has been linked to fraud and mal-practise. In these cases, the individual refused to take holiday – because a replacement would discover inconsistencies in the employees records and potentially uncover the fraud. See the case of Nick Leeson of Barings Bank.
4. They’re a workaholic. While some people get a kick out of working – some people don’t feel content unless they are working on a project of sorts, and for some – this can mean work is the only place they feel content with themselves.
5. They’re in Financial Difficulty. Sometimes the appeal of receiving an extra pay packet each year is just too strong. Especially if the individual has been straining under the weight of their person finances, and haven’t been taking tips from personal finance blogs.
Do you use your full holiday allowance? Or would you prefer to get paid for unused vacation entitlement?