Vacation Shaming Survey Results Part 2

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vacation shaming surveyWho Bows to Vacation Shaming

Last week, we disclosed a new behavior, “vacation shaming”, and documented it with a Google Consumer Survey measuring the prevalence of this disturbing workplace phenomenon. Now, let’s delve into vacation shaming a bit more. Who is most likely to succumb to being vacation shamed by their colleagues?

As a reminder, we asked 405 consumers the following question:

A new workplace phenomenon: vacation shaming. Vacation Shaming is feeling guilty or making others feel guilty about taking a vacation. What do you do about vacation shaming?

  • Ignore it and enjoy my vacation
  • Work just enough so no one realizes you’re gone
  • Don’t take a full week -spread it out
  • Stopped taking vacations
  • Something else

We found that women were slightly (but not significantly) more likely to ignore these shamers and carry on enjoying their vacations, while men were more likely to use one of the other ways of coping. Additionally, employees located in suburban areas were much less likely to ignore vacation shaming and enjoy their vacation than were employees in rural or urban locations.

On the other hand, and as you might expect, younger (under 35) and older (55 and over) employees were most likely to ignore vacation shaming, where employees in the middle were more creative about how they dealt with the issue:

vacation shaming age

And although age is usually correlated with income, in this case the lowest paid employees were more likely to ignore the shamers and enjoy the vacation. (Perhaps they have the least to lose?) Unfortunately, as income rises, the percentage of employees choosing this option decreases. So the higher your income, the craftier you will have to be to get in that full vacation – and to enjoy it!

vacation shaming income

So if you are a suburban male between the ages of 35 and 55, you have the worst of it. So if you must justify your vacation to your boss (or the vacation shamers), remember that holidays are good for you and will make you a happier, healthier, more productive employee. And then just ignore them and enjoy your vacation!

Read Part One of our survey results here

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Lenni Moore

Lenni Moore is the Director of Operations at Infosurv. She’s always been passionate about fostering strong professional relationships. It’s precisely these relationships that allow her to exceed her clients’ expectations because she knows exactly what they want and then leverages her experience to get it for them.
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