It’s summer, you’re on holiday in the sunshine with your family 2,000 miles from home, you haven’t spent more than a few hours at weekends with them for months, so why are you answering work emails and checking LinkedIn? Talk about the government banning mobiles in the classroom (why were they even allowed there in the first place?) - it’s grown-ups who should know better but are glued to their phones and laptops wherever they are. Being on holiday when you’re not on holiday and still working seems to be de rigueur in the 2020s. Whether its serious FOMO (fear of missing out), a tyrant CEO, incompetent staff or plain and simple work addiction, plugging in, logging on and keeping up to speed with work during holidays is an epidemic heading for a health emergency.
Workers have breaks from the workplace for a reason – to turn off, refresh and recharge and alleviate the stress. Yet by lakeside cafés in Slovenia, beaches in Spain, poolside in the States or cable car queues in the Alps, you’re likely to hear a British person barking instructions to work colleagues or scrolling through their emails. For most, it’s not as if bosses expect it.
It’s choice. On LinkedIn this week, a company director said he denied three requests by workers to have access to company systems and their work while they were on holiday. The work anywhere and everywhere situation started during Covid with remote working, although talk to people trying to manage remote working and all they s.
