Most Romanian employees have a hard time disconnecting from their job on holiday, BestJobs survey finds

Most Romanian employees believe that a quiet vacation where they disconnect from work and spend time with family or friends has a direct impact on their performance at work. However, only one in five manages to get away and enjoy their holiday without thinking about work,  according to a survey conducted by BestJobs.

The other four out of five remain connected to their job in one way or another, whether through calls from coworkers or managers or by having to work during their holiday.

About 21 percent know from the start that even if they are on holiday they might need to work if there are emergencies, but expect that such situations to be rare and not take more than a few hours out of their holiday.

Another 10 percent are convinced that they will need to work at least 1-2 hours each day, and 14 percent do not know what will happen in terms of job-related tasks on holiday. The remaining 55 percent are convinced that they will not need to work on their days off, but they have no certainty.

Even when they are not called by coworkers or there are no situations that require their attention on holiday, nearly 17 percent of employees say it is impossible for them to disconnect completely because they are horrified of what they’ll find when they return to work.

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Another 9 percent say they feel pressure from their bosses to keep in touch with the job even when they are away and a similar share admit that they choose not to keep away from work on days off for fear of falling behind, which is why they spend time every day at least to check emails and often to respond to the most important of them. It is no wonder then that 7 percent of employees say they cannot fully relax when they are on holiday, and over 26 percent say they only feel relaxed towards the end of the holiday.

Post-holiday symptoms: Lower productivity, more stress

Against this background, almost half of the respondents to the BestJobs survey say they have more energy and only one in three feels more productive, while the stress level is lower than before the holiday for about two out of five.

For almost a third of employees, the first days after the holiday are difficult and stressful, requiring additional effort to resume work and get caught up with what happened while they were gone.

This summer, most Romanian employees (53 percent) said they had planned two weeks of vacation and almost 17 percent had between two and three weeks. 14 percent of respondents have only one week of holiday planned, while 9 percent have more than three weeks.

Nearly half of employees are due to leave work in August, and one in five are on leave during July. Another 15 percent prefer to get days off in September, and 5 percent have already gone on vacation in June. Few, about 4 percent, say they will not take any leave by the end of the year, for various reasons.

At the time of the survey, 17.2 percent of respondents said they had at most 10 days of holiday left for this year, almost 20 percent had between 10 and 15 days, and a similar share had 15 to 20 days. Another nearly 17 percent had between 20 and 30 days off left, and 11.5 percent had more than 30 days of vacation, taking into account the days they hadn’t used last year.

The poll was conducted between June 24 and July 15, 2019, on a sample of 980 internet users.