Quiet Vacationing (In the Office)?

A CEO coaching client of mine called me last week and asked me what to do about the, “Quiet Vacationing” craze going on in his office this year.

I almost fell out of my chair.  Quiet vacationing?  Are you kidding me?

I have done blogs in the past on “quiet quitting”, “quiet hiring”, “quiet firing”, and several other kinds of “quiet” phenomenon in the work place over the past years.  But this takes the cake.

Why is everyone so “quiet” these days?

What is going on here?  Has the workplace gone mad?

Doing some quick research I discovered a recent Harris survey stating that, “37% of millennial workers have been on a quiet vacation recently.”

As far as I can tell, quiet vacationing is a term now used for folks in the office taking time off, (even traveling!) without telling their supervisor.

Is this another GenZ trend?  NO.  It seems that millennials are the guilty party this time around…that is, according to the research. It seems they have been overworked all these years and this is sort of a payback.

Based on many calls to my trusted network of candidates and hiring authorities in the WDC insurance community, here is my take on this new trend:

Remote and even hybrid work environments are technologically enabling workers to pretend like they are working when they are not.  Not all, but many.

This is crazy…one of my hiring authorities actually admitted to me that she has a software program that moves her computer mouse every few minutes when she is away picking up her young daughter from school every day.  As long as the mouse moves, the computer spyware on her computer thinks she is still working!  Very clever.  If hiring authorities are doing this, you know for sure the staff is too.

Another trusted contact of mine admitted that he uses the same mouse technology to sneak out for a Pickleball game twice per month on Friday afternoons.

One insurance carrier rep admitted to me that she regularly takes long weekends to the family farm in South Carolina and works remotely from there without telling anyone.

She’s even plays a round of golf or two at Hilton Head while on the company clock using her IPhone!

Funny…this same person did admit that while in South Carolina she received an urgent message from her boss to meet first thing in the morning on a client emergency.  She drove 11 hours through the night to make the meeting in Richmond at 9AM.  No one ever knew.  Thank God for Red Bull!

After doing some light research on this topic, the media seems to be pointing the finger at the millennials as sort of “work martyrs” being overworked and forced to professionally multitask more than other age groups.  Not sure I buy this.  The more I talk with my contacts, the more I get the impression that everyone seems to be playing this clever game these days to an extent.  Some more than others.

Corrective Action: My advice back to my client was to consider instituting a more creative PTO system to allow for more trust and flexibility.

In the same Harris Survey, it states that, “78% of all employees don’t take all their vacation.”  Here lies the opportunity to get creative..

As such, why not come up with a way to give your staff the time they ultimately need off in perhaps a different way?

Here is one idea: One client provides his staff with 15 floating days throughout the year to work remotely on top of their standard of two days at home each week.  This way if someone feels the need to take a long weekend to a remote location AND work, they can do so without sneaking away without telling anyone.

This works because some feel getting the side-eye from the boss when taking too much time off will perhaps limit promotions or maybe even becoming the victim of future cost-cutting.  This removes the guilt and creates a sense of trust and good will amongst the troops in the office.

The other strategy is don’t act surprised or offended when you find out that one employee has that clever mouse-moving device installed on their laptop.

It’s definitely a sneaky tactic. In fact, I think one of my staff is “quiet vacationing” as I type this!