There’s No Place Like Work For The Holidays

Business professionals have a hard time removing themselves from their careers during the holidays, with many staying at the office, losing vacation time or working remotely.

In fact, 37% said they planned to do some sort of work on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and/or New Year’s Day, an Office Pulse study of 1,200+ white-collar working professionals found. Of those professionals planning to work during their holiday, 1 in 3 (32%) will get a head start on big projects for their company, while an additional 61% just plan to answer ‘a couple’ of emails. Only 7% will actually be in the office.

The percentage of professionals who will work over the holidays, based on job-role:  C-Level execs: 79%  Senior Execs: 56%  Senior Managers: 62%  Middle Managers: 30% Junior Managers: 34%

As a result of all this extra work, employers can expect a $1.4 billion gain in productivity.

Those findings are in line with a similar 2015 study. Last year, Office Pulse found the same amount of business professionals (37%) would be doing ‘some sort’ of work during Thanksgiving, Christmas and/or New Year’s Day.

This year, male professionals were more likely to work over the holidays compared to female business professionals (44% vs. 31%).

Compared to other management groups, C-level executives were the most likely out of all management groups (79%) to do some sort of work on a holiday.

Business professionals are workaholics

Not only are people working during the holidays, they’re also losing personal vacation time this year. As the year winds down, more than a quarter of survey respondents (27%) said they will end up losing vacation time, up slightly from 22% last year.

Out of all management groups, C-level executives were most likely to lose their vacation time this year (68%).

An empty and quiet office

62% of senior managers said they’ll work on Thanksgiving, Christmas and/or New Year’s Day 42% of professionals take 1 week off in the month of December More male professionals will lose vacation time than female professionals (34% vs. 21%)

What to do in the week between Christmas and New Year’s seems to be a debate among business professionals. Some love those days; they value it as quiet time to get some much-needed work done. However, others see it as a challenge to get stuff done because there are so many that are not in the office.

In all, the majority (46%) say that their office is “empty and quiet” during the week leading up to New Year’s, which they view as a “waste of time” because no one else is in. Separately, 34% said they “get so much done” between Christmas and New Year’s because of the lack of coworkers around them. 6% said their office is closed during that week.

New Year’s Resolution

The New Year signals a fresh start for the 73% who plan to make some sort of resolution for 2017. By a landslide, the most popular thing professionals said they’d focus on in the new year would be their health and fitness (35%).

Surprisingly, most white-collar workers didn’t plan on making a New Year’s resolution that focused on their career. Just 7% said making some sort of change or adjustment to their career was a resolution in 2017.

Hopefully, these resolutions stick, since 18% of resolutions typically don’t make it past the first day.

How long does your New Year’s resolution typically last? Don’t make it past the 1st day: 18% About a week: 29% One month: 21% 6 months: 13% The entire year: 18%

Baby Boomers were the least likely age group among professionals to not make a New Year’s resolution. The percent of Boomers that won’t make a resolution: 53%