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This summer, employees are on the clock even when they\u2019re on vacation and trying to run out the clock when they\u2019re working. The culprit behind this paradox, which leads to stressful beach time and no emails after 3 p.m, is America\u2019s always-on workaholic culture.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So finds The Harris Poll when surveying<\/a> more than 1,100 employed adults during late April. Many Americans are satisfied with the amount of paid-time off they get but they\u2019re still leaving vacation days on the table. The majority of workers (78%), don\u2019t use all their PTO, taking an average 15 days off per year.\u00a0<\/p>\n Unable to unwind, employees find their summer vacations blocked by America\u2019s infamous workaholic culture<\/a>. Respondents\u2019 main hurdles from requesting time off are deeply rooted in societal norms, including the pressure to always be responding to tasks at work, the immense workload itself, and the feeling of guilt about leaving their co-workers. The pressure to be productive and meet deadlines deter many (63%) from taking time off and make others nervous to ask for PTO\u2014especially among younger generations.<\/p>\n While many workers are satisfied with their policy, they\u2019re finding themselves feeling crunched by the culture. Many (86%) report that they\u2019re checking emails when they finally take time off, and some (60%) add that they\u2019re unable to totally detach from work when on vacation.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, summer \u201con\u201d days look a bit more like vacation. Across generations, people are moving their moss to make it look like they\u2019re online or schedule sending a message to make it look like they\u2019re working,\u00a0 the survey finds. Millennials<\/a>, especially, are taking back some of the work-life balance they can\u2019t find from PTO by taking unreported time off. Funnily enough though, millennials have taken on the managerial role, so it appears as if your boss might be taking some secret vacations and silently spearheading a new corporate culture.\u00a0<\/p>\n Americans are trying to catch a break\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n While Europeans are known for their month-long \u201cholidays\u201d where they layer on real tans with a base of fake tans in Ibiza, Americans long have had troubles in kicking up their feet. It\u2019s baked into history, after all. The nation\u2019s Protestant work ethic and capitalist society have collided into a world that is both anti-worker and centers our identity around work, explains<\/a> University of Michigan philosopher Elizabeth Anderson in a Vox<\/em> interview.\u00a0<\/p>\n A whopping 85% of employees surveyed say that \u201cAmerica has a culture that glorifies being busy.\u201d And 76% of workers add that they wish their employers expressed the value of taking a break and using PTO more.<\/p>\n But Americans have been acting a bit like their European counterparts from across the pond over the last couple of years. The pandemic has poked some holes in America\u2019s hustle culture. There\u2019s nothing like a global plague to stir feelings of existentialism, and make one rethink the way they live their life. Part of what could be creating this summer of paradox is the growing pains of employees and employers thinking about how much they should value work after the pandemic.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think the pandemic has clearly reduced workaholism,\u201d Yongseok Shin, an economist at Washington University who co-wrote a paper about how wealthy people are working less than they once did, told The Atlantic<\/a> in 2023. \u201cAnd by the way, I think that\u2019s a very positive thing for this country,\u201d he notes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Alongside the pandemic came remote work, and a new way of thinking of how things get done. That wave of flexibility was soon followed by a productivity paranoia<\/a> among executives and a pushback to tradition. But some Americans who were able to work from home found that they got the job done without the charade of a 40-hour week. \u201cNobody will notice if you call it a day a little bit earlier on a Friday,\u201d Shin added in a Brookings Institution<\/a> conference.<\/p>\n The gap between how employees and executives imagine the future of work has led to some moments of rebellion, as CEOs remain stuck in tradition. \u201cThe in-office culture has not shifted, even though our values and the American worker values have shifted,\u201d Libby Rodney, chief strategy officer at The Harris Poll told Fortune\u2019s<\/em><\/a> Sasha Rogelberg. \u201cThe experience and the expectations are almost as if the pandemic never happened.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not all that shocking that millennials are leading the way in trying to break out of the hamster wheel. America\u2019s workaholic culture is a mainstay of its purported American Dream wherein young adults hustle for decades to buy a house, have a family, a car, and then retire. But this story proves increasingly out of reach for younger generations<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n