How much are we really resting during our annual leave?

This July we decided to dedicate our Vox Populi poll to a very relevant, and a very dear topic – annual leave. We were especially interested if our social media followers actually manage to rest and relax? Vacation should be a time of relaxing and recharging, but the results of our Instagram and LinkedIn Polls show that is not the truth for many.

Vacation is for tying up loose ends

43% of our LinkedIn respondents spends their vacation doing their remaining work tasks, while 53 % regularly checks their work e-mail. Upon returning from vacation, 61 % of respondents doesn’t feel an increase in motivation at work. When it comes to our Instagram followers, unsolicited task solving is also not rare – 33% of respondents admit to do their remaining work tasks, while 47 % thinks about tasks waiting for them upon their return.

On Instagram, 61 % of respondents used up their last year’s annual leave fully, however, only 43 % managed to rest from work completely. Furthermore, almost two thirds of respondents doesn’t feel more productive upon returning from vacation, while 74 % does not notice an increase in motivation.

Communication with coworkers doesn’t stop during vacation

When it comes to communication during annual leave, 68 % of respondents check their business e-mails. 35 % of them are contacted by their managers, and 68% of them by their coworkers. Because of this, two thirds of respondents feel upset because of business contact during their vacation. Their need for rest is clearly communicated by the fact that 73% of our poll’s respondents don’t want to be aware even of the most important events at work while on annual leave.

In conclusion, this month’s #VoxPopuliResults highlight the need for clearer boundaries between work and rest to ensure better quality rest and increase the motivation and productivity of employees upon their return to work. We encourage everybody to use the opportunity to rest completely and disengage from work happenings to return refreshed and motivated to take on new challenges.