What is leaveism and does it exist in your organisation?
Have you ever, checked your emails whilst on holiday or popped into the office on our day off or at the weekend?
If yes, then you could be guilty of leaveism, this is when an individual use scheduled time off (such as planned holidays) to perform work tasks or make themselves always available for work.
Ensuring employees take regular breaks from work is important for their mental health and overall wellbeing. Along with their rights to minimum rest periods and paid annual leave being protected by the Working Time Regulations 1998.
Do you have this in your organisation and are you personally promoting by doing this yourself?
Two-thirds of UK workers surveyed in November 2018 told the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) that they had observed leaveism in the last twelve months.
In this day and age, thanks to technology we are always available and have the ability to check our mailbox wherever we are.
Why could this be an issue for you?
This could cause your employees to ‘burn out’ impacting the individuals wellbeing and family work life balance. It also has a significant on productivity and morale of your employees.
This may just become the ‘norm’ an expectation and intern impact on the retention within your organisation and ultimately hitting the bottom line due to increased costs in recruitment and training.
What are the signs?
It could be that emails are sent out at all hours of the day and night or at weekend and employees come into the office on days off.
It also could be that you have set the expectation that your employees should action work outside of the ‘normal’ working day?
What can you do to prevent this from impacting your business?
- Have an awareness of your employees work activity checking in with on workload and what support they require.
- Review the flexible working practices to empower your employees to manage their time.
- Look to resolve any workload issues that prevent employees from switching off outside of working hours.
- Reinforce the importance of annual leave to staff, encouraging them to use their full allocation for their own wellbeing.
- Review your family friendly policies
For more information on managing absence in the workplace come and join our free breakfast briefing. Call 01422 897 673 or email enquiries@optimal-hr.co.uk to find our when our next event is taking place.
