While almost every organisation provides fixed holiday entitlement for their staff, recent survey conducted by British Airways suggested that most employees in India decide not to take their annual leave owing to the ‘stereotypes attached to it.’

According to the study release, employed adults in India get an average of 17 days paid holiday days per year. However, not all employees actually take advantage of this benefit, India Times reports.

The survey found that 42 percent respondents are often concerned with the mounting workload when they come back from holiday, and the other 26 percent are unable to find the right time to disengage from their task responsibilities. Meanwhile, nearly 30 percent are unable to gather the courage to ask for their manager’s permission to take leave, given that large share of respondents believe that two-week holidays will be frowned upon or discouraged by the workplace.

Involving 2,006 respondents in India, the study revealed that 65 percent of employed adults in the country have had leftover holidays allowance they could not use at the end of last year, mainly because over half of them (55 percent) were occupied with work.

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Even when the employees take their leave and go on holidays, it seems that they can never detach themselves from work-related matters. Nearly 60 percent employees surveyed expressed their discontent for not being able to completely switch off during their vacation, indicating that the word ‘holiday’ might seem to be serving against its purpose. Close to 32 percent said that this condition could be attributed to the short duration of the break, while 11 percent said they dreaded the thought of coming back to work after vacation, and 59 percent wished they had spent more time on vacation.

This study indicated the fact that many Indians, given the pressure of work responsibilities and changing priorities, are unable to fully detach, detract, and take a step back. When December comes around, many employees (16 percent) begin to panic about using up their holiday allowance they have not taken all the yearlong. However, about 97 percent have rolled over holiday days, in which 49 percent spend the day at home, 34 percent are usually embroiled in work, while the other 27 percent have all the time blocked for administrative responsibilities.

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