Holidays, or when holidays are working days like any other

Working during your holidays may seem like a crazy idea, but it is gaining more and more ground at a time when the flexibilization of work is undermining the balance between professional and personal life. This concept is reminiscent of that of “workcation“this portmanteau word resulting from the contraction of “work” (work) and “vacation” (vacation).

Except that these two terms do not refer to the same realities: furloughing is a deleterious practice adopted by some anxious employees faced with a workload that they consider insurmountable, while workcation concerns nomadic workers who want to join the useful pleasantly.

Despite the development of new technologies and organizations, work is becoming more intense and stressful. Many employees complain of being overwhelmed and have trouble concentrating on certain tasks that require their full attention. Blame it on emails, notifications and other digital distractions.

Added to this is the excessive use of meetings, or “réunionite”. This practice would represent 100 million dollars of lost revenue for large companies, according to a report from the University of North Carolina. It also greatly harms the productivity of employees – yet so dear to their employer – since they spend, on average, 18 hours a week in 17.7 meetings.

A springboard to burnout

As a result, many are forced to work outside their office hours, or even on their days off. Concessions like being reachable from the ski slopes or sorting through your 180 unread emails between buying two Christmas presents seem trivial enough, but they can lead to long-term burnout. . Indeed, leave is the consecration of the permanent state of vigilance in which certain employees find themselves who are afraid of missing something during their absence (what English speakers call “FOMO”), or who do not dare to ask limits in a hyperconnected world of work.

Many have fallen into this pitfall in recent years. More than two-thirds of UK HR managers have already faced furlough cases, according to the 2022 edition of the “Health and Wellbeing at Work” report of the professional association Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Only 30% of employees surveyed say that their company has implemented measures to combat this phenomenon.

However, they have every interest in doing so, according to Amrit Sandhar, founder of the agency The Engagement Coach. “Organizations working in an ‘always on’ culture can cause burnout among their employees, who are mentally and physically exhausted from working long hours and trying to handle enormous pressures“, he told Stylist. “[Priver] our minds and bodies the ability to detach from work […] can lessen the passion we have for the latter. What could start out as a great job can now feel like a burden“.

The risk run by holiday leavers is therefore the loss of meaning at work. This phenomenon is more difficult to spot than the famous burn-out because it is less brutal, but it is nonetheless widespread. Thus, 24% of French people believe that work is very important in their life, according to a recent study of the Jean-Jaurès Foundation in partnership with the IFOP, compared to 60% in 1990.

If the work loses its value, then there is no need to kill yourself to do it well, as loud and clear the followers of “quiet quitting”. This is where the shoe pinches: furloughs don’t make us better employees. It just pushes us never to slow down in an illusory quest for performance, which tends to make us, in the long run, more inefficient. It is the watered sprinkler.