Leaveism: the holiday that never quite happens

16 Oct

Booking a day off to be ill. Answering Slack from a sun lounger. Both look like commitment, and both cost more than they appear to.

Most leaders now know about presenteeism: people at work while running at half speed. Its younger sibling has a clumsier name and a growing footprint. It’s called leaveism, and it’s probably happening in your organisation right now, mostly while people are meant to be somewhere else.

What is leaveism?

The term was coined in 2013 by the researcher Ian Hesketh. It covers 2 habits:

Using leave to be unwell. Annual leave, flexi time or rest days taken because calling in sick feels risky.
Working while off. Holiday, evenings, weekends, the queue at the school gate.

The effect is the same either way. Absence figures look healthy, and the person never properly recovers.

How common is it?

Very. In the CIPD’s 2023 survey, nearly two thirds of UK organisations (63%) had seen leaveism in the previous year. 2 years on, among employers with people working from home, more said leaveism had risen with homeworking than fallen (20% against 14%).

Employees tell the same story. In 2025, Totaljobs found that 59% of UK workers admit to logging on while on holiday. 1 in 5 packs the work laptop. 44% keep checking Slack or Teams. More than 5 million people say they have left a job because of the pressure to work during their leave.

Some never get as far as the beach. A July 2026 survey by Employment Hero found 1 in 5 UK workers had delayed or cancelled a holiday because they were anxious about being away. Among Gen Z it was nearly a third.

Why it costs more than it looks.

Leaveism doesn’t get its own line in Deloitte’s figures. It hides inside the other 2.

Poor mental health costs UK employers £1,676 a year per employee. £788 of that is presenteeism and £646 is turnover. Leaveism feeds both. The person who checks in from Mallorca comes back no more rested than they left, so they spend the next month running below capacity. And when the pressure to stay reachable gets too much, some of them leave. Deloitte flagged leaveism as a rising cost back in 2020, closely tied to burnout.

The deeper reason is physiological. A holiday works because it gives the nervous system a long stretch with nothing to brace for. A phone buzzing in the beach bag keeps that watchfulness running. You come home with the tan and without the reset.

The sick-day version has its own logic. People spend holiday on being ill when a sick day feels like a black mark: a record, a return-to-work meeting, a manager’s raised eyebrow. Money matters too. 62% of employers themselves told the CIPD that Statutory Sick Pay is too low.

Why it’s so hard to spot.

Leaveism looks like dedication. The person who replies from the airport gets thanked. The one who takes a day’s leave with a migraine never appears in the absence report at all. Every incentive in the building points towards doing more of it.

What actually helps.

Read leave data next to absence data. Who isn’t using their full allowance? Who books single days at short notice, often on Mondays? Those patterns tell you more than the sick-day count.

Make sick leave usable. If people trust that a sick day is safe to take, they stop spending their holiday on being ill.

Set the norm from the top. An out-of-office from a director that actually means out of office does more than any policy. Proper handovers mean there’s nothing to check.

Watch the return. If a fortnight away means a fortnight’s backlog, people learn to keep up while they’re gone.

Give people a way down that doesn’t need a plane. A nervous system that only settles on holiday will struggle to switch off on holiday. Slow breathing, around 6 breaths a minute, is linked to more parasympathetic activity and lower anxiety, and it takes a few minutes at a desk. Small, daily and boring is how recovery becomes a habit instead of an annual event.

Leaveism is part of a bigger bill. Read how presenteeism adds up.

The Working Well assessment shows you where your organisation sits and what dysregulation is likely costing you. Your Working Well briefing, with the full cost model, follows by email.

Take the Working Well assessment today. workerbe.co.uk/working-well

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