If you’re in the majority, you’ll know that taking annual leave is one of the more joyful aspects of work and whether you use your holiday days to jet off to somewhere sunny, spend quality time with family members or simply binge watch the latest viral Netflix series, taking a break to reset and recharge is essential for your mental and physical health.
However, new research has found that 23% of workers in the UK did not use their full allowance of annual leave days last year. It also established that 55% of those who didn’t use their full allowance had to forfeit these days and weren’t compensated for them––effectively working for free.
The main reason for a reticence in taking time off is that four in five feel guilty about taking PTO as it adds to their colleagues’ workloads, while 26% admitted that apprehension surrounding job security was their main motivation for not taking time off.
Bearing both of these statistics in mind, it makes sense that 66% revealed they work overtime in the weeks leading up to annual leave to prevent their workload being passed on.
Long-term impact
While you might think annual leave is a nice to have and not an essential workplace benefit, working non-stop can have a detrimental effect on your health in the long-term and even lead to burnout.
Additional research has estimated that more than 10 million UK workers have had to take sick days due to burnout, at a cost of £700M to businesses.
Whether a culture of never taking time off is coming from the top or you feel burnt out from never allowing yourself to completely switch off, it could be time to reassess your work-life balance.
And if you realise your current role isn’t working for you, it could be time to look for a new opportunity via the Maddyness Job Board. It features thousands of tech roles across the UK, such as the three below.
Software Engineer – Trading Technology, FanDuel, Edinburgh
This Software Engineer role is working as part of FanDuel’s Trading Technology function, where it crafts sophisticated models and recommendation engines including the Live Play strategy. This is a greenfield initiative and includes PhD scientists who thrive on solving intriguing problems by using cutting-edge technology whilst shaping the future of US sports betting, and in this role you will be working within a newly-created engineering team who are at the stage of forming the team, building out their ways of working and setting up their CI/CD pipelines. Want to know more? Find out more information here.
Vice President, Technology and Engineering, Security, Mastercard, London
This is an exciting opportunity to be part of the function overseeing Security for Vocalink Limited, a company that enables the payments of 90% of salaries, 70% of utility bills, most ATM transactions and every cheque cleared in the UK. As Vice President of the Technology and Engineering team, you will play a crucial role in defining technology goals and establishing a technology strategy aligned to Vocalink’s business imperatives and industry standards and best practices. You will strategise and implement the security defences of the organisation, driving a tiered approach to balance the risk of threats proportionally and evaluate and protect every asset including the people and processes. See the full job description here.
Digital Technology Principal – Private or Financial Sector, Version 1, London
Version 1 is seeking a Digital Technology Principal to join its Digital Capability team which is expanding rapidly. In this role, you’ll report to either the private or financial services digital sector lead, and will be part of the Digital Sector team made up of other like-minded technology principals, with a focus on either private or financial services clients. Understanding the customers’ needs, being accountable for successful technical delivery, establishing technical direction, delivering technical excellence, and driving innovation, are all key aspects of the role. With no day the same, you’ll have a wide range of work, with a strategic focus and hands-on problem solving with teams when required. Access additional details here.
Accelerate your job search today via the Maddyness Job Board.