Analysis: leaveism is where employees work during leave periods or over the weekend to handle excessive workload
By Neeta Israni, ATU
Employees work hard throughout the year, so they deserve some paid time off to relax, go on holiday, spend time with family or simply disconnect from work. But not all employees use their leave for destressing, recharging or having fun. Leaveism refers to the practice of employees taking leave from work to finish office work that cannot be completed within normal working hours.
There are several reasons why employees might decide to work during leave periods or over the weekend to handle excessive workload. Many employees feel that offices are full of distractions and interruptions which does not allow them to fully focus on their work.
Unnecessary meetings are one of the biggest distractions from the actual work. A recent survey conducted on 632 employees across 20 industries found that employees spend about 18 hours a week on average in meetings. They only say no to 14% of invites though they'd prefer to not attend 31% of them.
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From RTÉ Brainstorm, the good and bad news about workplace gossip
Gossiping at work is another distraction which many find hard to resist. Time spent gossiping is obviously time spent not doing work. A recent study found that American workers spend about 40 minutes per week on average gossiping. These 40 minutes doesn’t take into account time spent on social media, surfing the web or general water cooler chit chat. Smoke and snack breaks and noisy co-workers are other examples of distractions at work.
Offices are increasingly getting lean. Job automation, large-scale redundancies, downsizing, radical changes and pay, hiring and promotion freezes are all leading to job insecurity, which might be why younger professionals are taking leave in this way. While some employees do not want to admit to their employers that they can’t handle the workload, others may engage in leaveism simply because of organisational citizenship behaviour. This is the voluntary, spontaneous, inbuilt behaviour exhibited by employees so that their team and the organisation can benefit from it.
Technology is the biggest enabler of leaveism. Smart phones and laptops mean employees are able to access emails outside work hours. Many employees may feel pressured to make themselves available even while they’re away from work as it may portray them as a committed employee.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Today with Claire Byrne, Sinéad English from Hilt Careers on toxic workplaces
Research suggests that leaveism can lead to disturbed work life balance, decrease in morale and productivity and, in some cases, stress and depression among employees. Yet not all organisations take action to discourage their employees from engaging in leaveism. In many organisations, managers are not able to spot signs of leaveism because they fail to observe that some of their employees are rarely logged off from laptops, frequently emailing outside of business hours, constantly available on the phone and reluctant to take annual leave by handing over work to their colleagues.
Indeed, some organisations might be tempted to ignore leaveism because it's saving them money as employees are uncomplainingly completing work without being compensated. This probably explains the findings of a 2021 study which noted that over two-fifths of organisations experiencing leaveism were not taking any actions to ward off leaveism.
Leaveism can lead to disturbed work life balance, decrease in morale and productivity and stress and depression among employees
All employees must know when to switch off but, if they don’t, a vigilant manger should come to their rescue. First and foremost, this should involve having an open discussion with the employee about his/her workload and assessing why an employee is not taking annual leave and working outside of his/her paid hours.
After establsing the reason for the leaveism, a manger may decide to redistribute the workload among team members or hire more staff, if required. Assuring the employee that a proper and efficient leave cover will be provided might encourage an employee to go on annual leave as he/she no longer has to worry about meeting with piled up files after returning from the annual leave.
Neeta Israni is a PhD student in the School of Business at ATU.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
