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Why Indian employees are stingy with their leaves?

  • We love to hoard our vacations as well apart from hoarding money
  • Your personal schedule is such that you need to take a holiday to decide when to take a holiday
India no leaves vacation deprived Expedia study

 

Reading this headline you could probably see your bosses and HR managers shake their head in disbelief. Now, you can show them these statistics. According to the 2016 Vacation Deprivation Study conducted by Expedia, India at 40 per cent, is ranked as the fourth most vacation deprived country globally, just after Spain(68 per cent), UAE (68 per cent); Malaysia (67 per cent) and South-Korea (64 per cent).

 

You may complain that just last week, you co-worker took a 14-day vacation to Singapore and has already taken two such holidays in the year, so how does this statistic add up? You, my friend, are not the only ones not taking a vacation. The survey shows that out of the 21 days vacation offered in India, only 15 days are largely utilised while 6 days are left unused.

 

Here are some reasons why Indians don’t take leave:

 

  • We love to hoard our vacations as well apart from hoarding money. Yes, Indians love to bank their holidays thinking they can carry it forward into the next year and then despite that end up taking only one or two days out of the bank.

 

  • If it’s a family of two, then most of the time coordination between the spouses holidays does not happen. Yes, there are cases where either the husband or wife is not getting leave at the same time.  For those of you who love solo vacations this does not matter but for bachelors who wait for friends to have coordinating holidays end up with them having no vacation.

 

  • Your personal schedule is such that you need to take a holiday to decide when to take a holiday. Workaholics, here’s looking at you. The workload is so much that you cannot think of the snowy slopes of Shimla or the sandy beaches of Goa.

 

  • You are afraid that your boss will think you shirk work and so you decide to sacrifice your holidays to keep up your image. Many a times when there is shortage of manpower on the desk and you want to take a holiday, you are forced to give it up fearing your boss’ refusal or the creation of an image of a person who is not a team player.

 

  • In case you are in the senior management level you are afraid that the company will move ahead without you. Many employees will vouch for this. When you go to ask for vacation you are met with one line that stops you dead in your tracks: "If we can survive one week without your contribution, we can survive the rest of the year as well." So there goes your vacations plans.

 

  • You cannot tolerate nosy relatives who are bound to question you on your salary, marriage and kids and so you opt out of it altogether. Yes, we feel you. Going home to visit relatives even sometimes is a pain because of the interrogation we are subjected to.

 

  • Also because you cannot afford a holiday. Welcome to the club. Many of us prefer to save our holidays for that day when we can afford a holiday to Greece or Bangkok (which judging by my bank balance at least, is like next to never). 

 

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