Survey: Nearly 50% of Employees 'Quiet Vacation' During 4th of July Week

By Sarah Lynch, Inc. (TNS)

During the week of the Fourth of July, your workers might be in the holiday groove long before their palm tree “vacationing” emojis pop up on Slack.

Almost half of American workers say they have previously “quiet vacationed” around the Fourth of July holiday, according to a new survey of over 1,200 U.S. workers from the Harris Poll. That means that they didn’t ask their manager for permission to take time off, but they didn’t work anyway.

It’s not just an Independence Day trend: One in eight workers plan to partake in quiet vacationing this summer, according to another recent survey.

It’s particularly popular among younger workers, the Harris Poll found. Around the Fourth of July holiday, 56 percent of Gen Z and millennial workers admit to quiet vacationing in the past, compared to 35 percent of Gen X and boomers. Another 56 percent of Gen Z and millennial workers think that working during the week of July 4 should be “taboo.”

It’s evidence of a “generational divide” around time off, says Libby Rodney, chief strategy officer at the Harris Poll: “Younger workers think that major holidays should be a time of rest, not just a day off.”

Indeed, 62 percent of Gen Z and millennial workers “would make trade-offs for their workplace to be closed for a week” around the Fourth of July holiday, according to the report—an offering currently available to just 10 percent of workers in the survey.

Specifically, a third say they would take a pay cut for this time off, while 27 percent would sacrifice “access to certain company perks or benefits” and 19 percent would give up a portion of their annual bonus.

It “speaks volumes about their value on work-life integration,” Rodney says—and 40 percent of these younger workers think this time off would actually make them more productive, as well.

This could be important for company leaders to understand, Rodney adds: “Younger generations just see a different way of ultimately getting the same work productivity that older generations want.”

_______