What Is the Quiet Vacationing Workplace Trend That’s Gaining Popularity?

The quiet vacationing workplace trend has employers penning their return-to-office mandates with great fervor, demanding employees return where they can keep an eye on them. The new trend has employees going on vacation without taking any days off, which means many of them are relaxing at new destinations while still logging in to work every day. On the one hand, quiet vacationing sounds like quite the work hack. Employers don’t have to get someone to fill in for an employee because the employees continue to get their work done while also destressing at a new location.

On the other hand, quiet vacationing adds to the toxic culture of hiding things from employers and finding ways to work around them surreptitiously. However, the fear among employees that they could lose their jobs at any moment is just as toxic. The worry is so significant that employees are choosing to work on vacation instead of admitting to needing a break.

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Taking Time Off Is So Old School—Presenting the Quiet Vacationing Workplace Trend

First things first, what is quiet vacationing? Quiet vacationing refers to the trend of employees going on vacation without applying for leave, which means they continue to be available to their employers when they travel. Many feel that “work from home” technically doesn’t have to mean from their home, so employees choose to work from another destination without formal approval to do it.

In some cases, employees work their full workdays without any change in the quality of their performance, while in other cases, the employees end up being only passively present “at work” without working on any tasks that they are assigned. In both cases, employees hide their travel from their managers and pretend they are still working from home or making the most of the hybrid model offered to them.

Some Concrete Data from the Quiet Vacationing Workplace Survey

According to the quiet vacationing workplace survey by Monster, 49 percent of workers have considered taking a quiet vacation without telling anyone. A smaller 14 percent of them have lied to their employers about their location while indulging in this trend. To make matters worse, 11 percent of workers have taken 10 or more quiet vacations, which is a startlingly high number.

 When questioned about why they wouldn’t just take permission or use their paid leaves, 26 percent of workers stated they didn’t think it mattered where they worked. Another 20 percent felt overwhelmed by work and needed a break while 15 percent didn’t want to lose their pay by taking the time off. Around 11 percent of the respondents didn’t think their managers would notice the difference anyway.

When the Monster survey explored the concerns that employees had about the quiet vacationing work hack, 51 percent said they didn’t want to jeopardize their job security by showing employers that they took breaks from work. Some workers admitted that they chose not to take a real vacation because they felt too much guilt about leaving their work while others didn’t want to let their coworkers down by disappearing on them. 

While the quiet vacationing workplace trend sounds fun and some do get some peace of mind from being at a new destination that they can enjoy outside working hours, 20 percent of them also spend it worrying about being caught by their managers. When an employee spends their entire vacation working and stressing about being caught, it defeats the purpose of going on vacation at all. These numbers paint a confusing picture. 

Is Quiet Vacationing Representative of a Toxic Work Culture?

As simple as the quiet vacationing workplace trend sounds, there are many different elements to consider here. Quiet vacationing is not a newly discovered workplace hack. Post-pandemic, many individuals who were finally able to step out of the confines of their homes were still inundated with worries about falling sick with COVID because the virus had not been fully eradicated. 

“Staycations” became a popular option, and people began to travel locally, choosing to spend some time in a resort that let them stay at a place that wasn’t their home. The concept of “workcations” also gained steam similarly, where employees continued to work from a new destination and took full advantage of the work-from-home opportunity. So what makes the quiet vacationing workplace trend so different?

Many workers who go on these quiet vacations don’t let their work falter in their absence. Despite being on vacation, they continue to work at full capacity and get tasks done the same way they would at home, without some of the pressures of being physically present at home. 

Unfortunately, not all workers continue to work efficiently. Many leave tasks ignored, schedule emails, and work the bare minimum to create the illusion of being at work, without actually being available. This is where the workplace trend starts to become toxic. The work suffers because they are not around to address their responsibilities and other tasks get held up as a result. This drives more employers to take a stand against work-from-home jobs and getting caught at this stage puts the employee’s entire job in jeopardy. 

All things considered, the quiet vacationing trend is representative of the toxic workplace culture that is settling within organizations, although the intention behind it is not inherently toxic. Much like the hushed hybrid work trend or coffee badging, work trends like this one strain the relationship between employers and employees and add the constant pressure of getting caught up in the anxiety and worry that employees are already dealing with. There are many drawbacks of quiet vacationing to consider here. 

Disadvantages of Quiet Vacationing

There are many reasons why the quiet vacationing workplace trend is unhealthy for both employer and employee.

• Working from an exotic destination might cause employees to be more laid back, which inevitably affects their performance
• Workers have to deal with a greater number of distractions compared to their home or office space, limiting their productivity
• Those who do not work the whole time will have to return to a greater pile of tasks because they have not been reassigned to someone as they never informed their managers about needing a break
• There is a constant worry of being contacted in a position where they may be unable to respond to a task, which adds to the fear of being caught
• Colleagues may have to take on additional work and lie to the managers to cover up for the missing employee which puts their jobs at risk as well
• Employees do not fully disconnect from their work so they never get the “break” they need to truly relax
• Employees who are caught risk permanent damage to their relationship with their employer and their reputation at work

Advantages of Quiet Vacationing

If there are so many negative repercussions of going on vacation without telling anyone, it makes you wonder why people are doing it anyway. While the secretive approach does have its drawbacks, employees do find some peace of mind when they can work without some of the many pressures of being at home.

• Employees get a break from their daily routines and responsibilities that come with being at home such as tidying up the home, cooking for the family, etc. This allows them to work with a much happier headspace for a few days
• From the quiet vacationing workplace survey, 26 percent of workers felt the quiet vacation decreased their anxiety and improved their wellbeing
• Employees do not have to worry about falling behind on their work tasks because they still continue to work on them and meet deadlines on time
• These quiet vacations eliminate the possibility of being removed from a project or shifted to an unwanted task just because they took a vacation
• Employees do not feel the pressure of being negatively judged by their organization for leaving their work or not “being committed” to their roles sufficiently 
• Individuals can use their paid time off to handle their other responsibilities once they return, like going for health checks up and completing tasks around their home

What Should Employers Do about the Quiet Vacationing Workplace Trend?

With all the conversation around these workplace trends, the problem often comes down to a disconnect between the employee and their workplace. A Harris Poll survey on the same topic found that 89 percent of Gen Z workers and 83 percent of millennials claimed they had sufficient paid time off from the organization, and yet 48 percent of them still admitted to quiet vacationing. Despite the leave available, most workers feel there is a negative perception around taking time off from work.

For employees to be more willing to use the days off instead of taking secret vacations, employers need to ensure that the workplace as a whole, managers included, does not hold a negative attitude around holidays or punish employees for it. Employers also need to be more communicative with employees and supportive of their decision to take a break every once in a while, maintaining a healthy relationship with every employee. 

Taking a closer look at employee well-being, employers need to regularly reevaluate if their employees are being overworked so they can adjust how work flows within the company, hiring at a steady pace to accommodate the increasing workplace demands. The relationship between employers and employees has evolved to become quite fragile, which is why employees prefer to take whatever measures are necessary to avoid alerting employers to their problems.

Employers who work on employee retention will be much more efficient in understanding the employees’ struggles to ensure workplace trends like quiet vacationing never disturb the peace at their organization.

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