Employee survey / Bitkom
Available on vacation?
The proportion of employees who can also be reached on business while on vacation remains high. Younger people are the most likely to be able to disconnect completely. These are the findings of a recent Bitkom survey.
As in previous years, the Berlin-based digital association Bitkom surveyed German employees before the start of the vacation season to find out whether they are also available for work during their vacation. The result: 64% are. Although this is a decrease of seven percentage points compared to the previous year, it remains to be seen whether a general trend is emerging. Since Bitkom has been conducting this survey, the figures have always fluctuated slightly. However, it is striking that the highest approval rating of 76% was achieved in the first survey in 2014 and the lowest this year. It is possible that the realization is slowly gaining ground that summer vacations are for relaxation and that digital technologies enable flexible working, but do not oblige people to be constantly available.
The survey was conducted by the Bitkom association among 426 working people who are on vacation in the summer. Only a third of them stated that they were not available for work while on vacation.
© Bitkom ResearchAccording to the Bitkom survey, younger employees are the most likely to take a break from work while on vacation. 39% of employees up to the age of 29 completely disconnect from work during their summer vacation. Only 30% of 30 to 49-year-olds manage this, and 34% of those over 50.
Most Germans can be reached by phone (57%) or text message (61%) by their boss, colleagues and business partners while on vacation. In contrast, the proportion of those who read work emails has fallen significantly (27%) - four years ago, this figure was twice as high at 54%. In contrast, availability by telephone or text message has hardly changed.
As a rule, employees do not need to be reachable outside of working hours - i.e. on vacation or on public holidays, explains Bitkom CEO Bernhard Rohleder. Where availability is necessary, a clear and mutually agreed arrangement should be made, for example in the form of an on-call service, he recommends and warns: "Situations in which permanent availability is tacitly assumed without this being compensated for in any other way are particularly problematic."
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