Heavy workloads are forcing a third of
IT executives to miss out on their full holiday entitlement,
according to the Chartered Management Institute (CMI).
A survey of 1,484 executives showed 34% of those
missing out on holiday blame excessive workloads.
The CMI said the failure to take holiday could be a result of
the credit crunch.
Around 17% of IT professionals said they wanted to use their
holiday time to gain skills to make themselves "recession-proof".
Over half (51%) did not want to let clients or colleagues down, and
33% said they were focused on meeting project deadlines.
Those execs who did take their full holiday allowance spent much
of it working, the CMI said. Nearly half, 47%, regularly checked
their work e-mails, 40% picked up voicemail messages, and 15%
thought holidays were a good time to catch up on background
reading.
Jo Causon, director for marketing and corporate affairs at the
Chartered Management Institute, said, "Without a proper break,
individual performance can suffer and employers will notice
mistakes more than they will their absence through holiday.
Individuals need to recognise this and use holiday time to recharge
their batteries."