What is ‘quiet vacationing’ – and can’t we just call it skiving off?

In perhaps the most 2024 workplace trend yet, remote employees are reportedly secretly pretending to work while going on holiday, in order to avoid using paid annual leave.

Known as ‘quiet vacationing’, practitioners use video conferencing software to dial into work calls. But while their camera may be off, they could be calling from anywhere in the world; poolside from their rented villa, or even perched at the hotel bar.

To workers, it’s a win-win. They can go abroad without using any holiday entitlement and argue that if the work is done, who is it hurting? Managers are more dubious about the impact it could have on productivity, as well as the longer term ramifications for employee engagement. 

Below, we explore what might be causing the trend, and what it says about what proper work-life balance looks like in today’s working world.

Skiving or thriving?

Employer concerns about the worker productivity impact of remote working have been growing in the past year. Some bosses theorise that employees are secretly using this time to lounge around the house and fob off their To Do lists.

Globally, many businesses are now ordering staff to return to the office. Manchester United co-CEO, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, even began counting the number of emails sent on work from home days to argue that employees did less work on these days.

Paranoia about what staff get up to while away from the office has even resulted in some businesses rolling out employee monitoring software to track their attendance.

The ‘quiet vacationing’ trend will not help to abate these worries. One full-time employee shared with Business Insider that he had taken a month-long trip to Italy earlier this year. He used just one week of annual leave during the trip, and quietly vacationed for the other three.

The right to switch off 

It’s no coincidence that the quiet vacation trend has taken hold in July and August. British workers may also be looking enviously at the supposed ‘take August off culture’ boasted on the continent. Typically, we presume these late summer months are less busy as employees take time off in the school holidays. 

But that theory might be shifting as the post-COVID global economy continues to struggle. In a recent survey by instantprint, over a third of Brits said they will face a heavier workload this summer, as struggling employers try to make up for current dismal trading conditions.

This could cause employee benefits designed to reduce pressure on staff to backfire. Policies such as unlimited PTO (where workers are encouraged to take as much holiday as they want) can end up discouraging staff from going on leave when their workload mounts.

It may also be why employees are increasingly leaning on quiet vacationing, in order to enjoy an overseas break while keeping an eye on their work responsibilities. 

Work-life balance has taken a new meaning for today’s employees. Expanding beyond a 50-50 balance of personal and professional duties; staff now want to fuse their work hours and personal interests together — hence, quiet vacationing.

Workation negotiation

Quiet vacationing might be a defensible rejection of an ‘always-on’ attitude to working. But, it doesn’t necessarily mean that staff are slacking off.

As the anonymous employee told Business Insider: “No one at the company has ever raised suspicion that I’m not doing enough work, and I usually get rave reviews in appraisals.”

That doesn’t mean the trend is any less urgent to address, however. Experts have warned that quiet vacationing can be a sign of a toxic workplace culture if staff don’t feel comfortable to A) take time off work and B) tell managers they are working abroad.

One solution could be to offer employees the opportunity to take ‘workations’. In this arrangement, remote teams are free to work from abroad. Crucially, though, their bosses know they are on holiday and both parties can trust the other to carry out their duties.

Instaprint’s survey found that 46% of surveyed employees want to be offered more flexible working arrangements during the summer, such as earlier start times and finishes.