Summary: Refusing to take holiday can look like commitment, but it often signals a deeper problem. This pattern raises the risk of burnout and long-term harm to mental health, and has serious consequences for your business.
According to research from Timetastic, one in four employees haven’t had a single day off in three months.
About one per cent of employees haven’t taken a day off in six months.
And there are even employees who have taken no leave in nine to 12 months.
While the majority of employees are taking leave regularly, including mini-breaks like duvet days, birthday leave and mental health days, we should be concerned not only about employees who seem unable to take breaks, but also for our culture if such behaviour is prevalent.
What we permit persists
While your comms might emphasise the importance of mental health, boundaries and taking regular breaks, your behaviour says something else.
When someone takes regular leave from work, admit it – isn’t a part of you frustrated, especially if you are impacted? It’s extra work.
There are gaps in knowledge – they’ve taken what they know with them. Other people have to pick up their projects.
And I’m sure we’ve all been tempted (or even followed through) to contact someone who is away because ‘this can’t wait’.
But the person who never misses a day? They are like gold dust. And they know their ‘commitment’ is seen and appreciated. Neither they, nor you, want to break the spell.
When you overlook this kind of extreme working pattern you tell them, and everyone else, what you really value as an organisation.
We should be concerned not only about employees who seem unable to take breaks, but also for our culture if such behaviour is prevalent
What you reward reveals a lot
Often you’ll promote this person. Or perhaps you won’t need to.
You’ll give them more responsibility as a ‘reward’ for their dedication. You’ll feedback that they are an essential team member and that they model the ethos of the organisation.
And while you might ask if they are OK and vaguely suggest they should take some time off, you’ll also hope they don’t.
I was once asked to coach someone like this. He was an old-style salesperson, a bit rough around the edges, not always in touch with his emotional intelligence and becoming out of sync with the new, warmer culture in the business.
Our work together was hugely successful. He opened up about his past and about how trapped he felt in this typecast persona he’d been operating by.
And he changed. He warmed up and became more gentle, a better listener, no longer willing to get a sale at any cost.
And the feedback we both got? “Can you turn him back into what he was before? It turns out we need a ‘bad guy’ sometimes so the rest of us don’t have to play that role.”
If you secretly value, reward and enable this behaviour, you tell them, and everyone else around them, what really matters.
Single point of fragility
When an employee like this does go on leave, they create a far greater gap than anyone else.
They hold so much information, their fingers are in so many projects, and they are such a constant presence that, in their absence, everything grinds to a halt.
Your system is fragile because a small number of people hold so much.
When they go months without a break, this isn’t about delaying a holiday. This is about their identity
Love of work becomes identity
These are people who love their work. And they are good at it too.
They are wired not to let others down. They will tend to be ‘answers’ people you go to when you need a quick decision or to resolve a quick question.
Rarely do they ever say no and they prove the saying: “If you want something done, ask a busy person”.
This becomes their capital. When they go months without a break, this isn’t about delaying a holiday. This is about their identity.
Who would they be if they break their streak? Their sense of their value is tied up in how much they do and how essential they are, how much they care and how resilient they are.
Breaking their habits takes more than telling them to take leave. It means helping them re-think how they contribute and where their value comes from.
They will change
I worked with a CFO who insisted on checking his team’s spreadsheets line by line. He wasn’t trying to disempower them (although that’s how they felt). He just loved spreadsheets. His identity came from his ability to spot a critical error in pages and pages of excel.
Before he could give up on the spreadsheets he had to rethink what his real job was, and the strengths and innate preferences which made him a perfect fit for CFO.
And there was a mourning to be done. He would have to say goodbye to his beloved spreadsheets. I’m not joking. That’s how it felt.
If you truly want people to take their leave, it’s not a conversation about burnout or how wonderful Marrakech is this time of year.
It’s a conversation about identity and values.
And to have that conversation you need to be fully committed to the outcome – that they will change.
They will become someone who doesn’t hold so much. Who isn’t as essential. Who doesn’t say yes to everything. And who is more frequently not at their desk, even though that causes a headache for someone else … maybe for you.
A concerning 63 per cent of employees are currently showing burnout symptoms
Why would you change this?
Burnout impacts productivity, attrition, and sick leave (all of which have huge, predictable costs).
A concerning 63 per cent of employees are currently showing burnout symptoms.
The cost of poor employee mental health went up £6bn in the UK between 2019 and 2024 and 61 per cent of people who recently left their job or are actively planning to leave cite mental health as a reason.
And while these individuals might seem like they are giving extra, employees with poor mental health cost their employer an average of £2,646 each year.
A recent article about burnout by corporate therapy provider, Spill , put it beautifully “…the chance of feeling emotionally exhausted by work is exacerbated by a reluctance to take time off to reset”.
What can you do?
- Provide mental health leave as a preventative measure
- Provide feedback and coaching for your high performers to help them unpick old identities and form new, healthier ones
- Do not reward behaviour that goes against your proclaimed values, even when that behaviour is serving you right now. Reward people who set boundaries and take time off
- Resource your business so that people can take time off without a burnout risk to everyone left behind
- Have a blanket ban on people being contactable on holiday
- Provide people with coaching skills training so they have the option to coach others rather than always being the ‘answers’ person.
Read another article by Blaire Palmer: Stop asking why Gen Z are difficult and start asking what they are showing you
