Indian and U.S. workers get less paid vacation time than any of the countries surveyed – 18 days, compared to the global average of 25 days, a survey by Tripadvisor.com has found.
Both Indian and U.S. respondents on average would like an additional four days of vacation, considering 22 days of paid vacation to be fair and reasonable. Interestingly, this is the lowest expectation among the countries surveyed – Brazilians and Russians want the most at 33 days per year.
Not suprisingly therefore, 53% of the Indian respondents do not feel the amount of paid vacation time given in India is fair compared to what the rest of the world receives. U.S. respondents are the most likely to report feeling guilty if they don’t work on vacation (18%), followed by UK (14%) and India (11%).
“Working on Vacation Survey” of more than 17,000 employed respondents across 11 countries including 1100 in India. The other 10 countries include US, Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain and the U.K.
In addition, 47 percent of Indian respondents say they do not mind doing a little work on vacation, while 46 percent would prefer to be totally disconnected, and 7 percent enjoy being connected to work while on vacation.
“While mostly no one enjoys having to work while on a vacation, today’s hyper competitive and demanding work cultures preclude the fact that almost 50% of Indians ended up attending to work while on vacation last year,” said Nikhil Ganju, Country Manager, TripAdvisor India.
“While employees from a few other countries such as the US and Australia are ahead of Indians on this not-so-desirable indicator, clearly this is not a great trend from the point of view of advocates of a happy work-life balance.”
Across all countries surveyed, the top reason respondents cited for working on vacation is that there may be urgent situations that need attention – 71 percent of Indian respondents polled feeling this way.