ROCK ISLAND, Ill. — The holidays are a chance to tune out from work and relax, but for some employees, it's hard to step away from their job entirely.
In a survey by Qualtrics - a company that surveys mass populations - only 27% of U.S. workers used all their paid time off. On average, 9.5 vacation days went unused last year.
The survey said almost half of American employees work at least one hour each day while on vacation.
The top reasons people gave were "a fear of falling behind on work," "letting down the team," and "pressure from co-workers."
Brandon Kutmas from the Quad City Behavioral Health Associates believes the challenge of maintaining work-life balance is deeply rooted at a young age.
He explained that for many of us growing up, schools often expect a routine to be followed - that you attend class regularly and turn in homework on time despite issues that might be going on in life.
"For those very, very strong developmental periods of our lives, we're being taught really bad habits about work-life balance and then we graduate," Kutmas said. "And then we're told, 'Oh, you know, make sure to keep an eye on that work-life balance - that's your responsibility.' No one's ever taught us what that supposed to look like! And so we just do our best."
He said this is why newer vacation benefit styles, like "unlimited paid time off" haven't worked well yet.
"The use of unlimited PTO puts people in that gray area of what's appropriate and what's not," Kutmas said. "That's sort of a cultural thing... it hasn't been a very common thing throughout the last several decades to have unlimited PTO for an employee. And so when you don't have that sort of experience, or you've never seen any examples of people with unlimited PTO, you don't really know where the lines are."
Kutmas said that for employees and businesses to maintain a healthier attitude towards vacation time, communication is key - that both parties need to be clearly aware of each other's needs.
"There isn't a work-life balance routine on the planet that can counteract the effects of a toxic work environment," he said. "You can have things that you're responsible for, but there's still the business that is responsible for making sure that they've got safe and healthy places to work in."
In that same survey by Qualtrics, 27% of U.S. employees said they don't feel refreshed after taking a vacation.
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