Most Indians work even during vacation
Not a good sign as work-life balance is skewed: Study
Update: 2014-08-27 05:18 GMT
Chennai: Despite Indians emerging as globetrotters and travel becoming more of passion for them, it appears they could hardly take a break from the work pressure and the pull of smart phones whilst on a holiday. An emerging trend indicates that nearly 50 per cent of Indians ended up attending to work while on vacation last year. And quite surprisingly, most Indian travellers were found reluctant to do away with their phones while holidaying.
According to Nikhil Ganju, country manager, TripAdvisor India, “mostly no one enjoys having to work while on a vacation. But today’s hyper competitive and demanding work cultures preclude the fact that almost 50 per cent of Indians ended up attending to work while on vacation last year, while employees from a few other countries such as the US and Australia were ahead of Indians on this not-so-desirable indicator.”
Clearly this is not a great trend from the point of view of advocates of a happy work-life balance, he asserts. His firm conducted the “working on vacation survey” on 17,000 respondents across 11 countries including 1,100 in India. The other 10 countries include the US, Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain and the U.K. The survey also reveals that Indians rank higher on most ‘work activities’ that one does on vacation in comparison to the global average. As many as 53 per cent of Indian respondents feel their vacation duration is not fair compared to the rest of the world.
Americans are most dissatisfied with 75 per cent of them saying their vacation time is unfair compared to the rest of the world. Among the countries polled, France has got the most average paid vacation days annually (31 days), followed by Russia (29 days). According to a survey by hotels. com, one in five (20 per cent) Indians regret spending too much time on their mobile device once they have returned home after a holiday. Three out of five (58 per cent) admitted to checking work e-mails while away and seven in ten (71 per cent) concede that they try to use their holiday to forget about work.
Comparatively, India came in last place, with only 20 per cent of respondents not willing to keep away phones while on holiday.