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hushed holidaying 🤫🌴
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Happy Thursday HR friends!👋
Today we’re talking about hushed holidaying. 🧠
I know, just when we’ve gotten our heads around the hushed hybrid culture. What next?!
As ever, if you have any feedback just reply to this email. We read every one and love to hear from you all!
In Today’s Edition
🕵️♀️ The Rise of Secret Work-Travel
🛋️ The Break Room: Is this happening in your workplace? What's your thoughts?
📚 Human Readsources: Holiday season causes increased stress for workers, Yahoo replaces annual reviews with ongoing check-ins, AI rapidly replacing human IT support workers.
Are they work from home or working from Rome?
Welcome to the era of hushed holidays, where remote work meets wanderlust in secret.
Employees are quietly trading their home offices for beachside cafés in Barcelona, all while keeping up appearances of business as usual.
This sneaky trend is the natural evolution of hushed hybrid work, and it's creating new challenges for HR teams everywhere, especially in the holiday season where a distributed team has fewer days than the rest of the year in the office.
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🌍 The Rise of Secret Work-Travel
Remember when "working from home" actually meant working from home? Those days are fading fast as employees get creative with their remote work locations - often without telling their employers.
This isn't just about catching up on emails from a local coffee shop anymore; we're talking full-blown international workations that fly under the radar.
The numbers are eye-opening: 56% of workers say they were likely to take a hush trip in 2024, working remotely from vacation destinations without their employer's knowledge. It's the natural evolution of hushed hybrid work, but with potentially bigger implications for HR - think data security risks, tax complications, and insurance coverage gaps.
As HR pros, we need to ask ourselves why employees feel the need to hide their locations in the first place. Is it our PTO policies?
Trust issues? Or are we still stuck in old-school presenteeism?
The solution isn't catching secret travelers - it's creating transparent policies that balance flexibility with compliance, that protect both the company and employee interests.
🔗 Relevant links
👀 TLDR
Secret work-travel ("hush holidays") is on the rise, with 56% of workers planning to work remotely from vacation spots without telling their employers. While it signals evolving workplace flexibility needs, it also brings compliance and security risks.
⚡ Takeaway and Try
- 📋 Survey your employees (anonymously!) about their dream work locations - this data can help you build a policy that prevents "hushing" before it starts
- 🤝 Set up a quick chinwag with your leadership team to discuss what's actually stopping you from having a "work from anywhere" policy - you might find the barriers aren't as big as assumed. And it doesn't need to be year-round. Some companies have really successful "work from anywhere" for 2 weeks or 1 month every year. And it's a super popular perk.
- 🔒 Check in with compliance and IT to make sure all employees have access to the relevant company wikis and process docs around company equipment insurance and data security. Laptops and phones can very easily go missing when on vacation.
- 📱 Create a simple "location transparency" form that makes it easy for employees to notify HR about their work location without fear of judgment or denial.
☕ The Break Room: What's Your Take?
📚 Human Readsources
🏢 Holiday Stress Impacts Half of American Workers (Forbes) - Holiday stress affects workers' well-being and productivity, survey finds.
⚖️ Yahoo Ditches Annual Reviews for Continuous Check-Ins (HR Grapevine) - Yahoo replaces annual reviews with continuous manager-employee check-ins.
📊 AI Rapidly Replacing Tech Support Desk Workers (CNBC) - AI rapidly replacing human IT support desk workers by 2027.
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