Remote work has made its mark on the workforce, and apparently so have “hush trips”. In a survey involving more than 900 GenZers, ResumeBuilder.com ran a survey asking different questions surrounding hush trips in their work lives.
A hush trip is when an employee takes an unauthorized vacation without formal approval. Therefore, working, or not working, from a vacation destination while their employer thinks they’re at their approved remote work location.
Why it matters: With the implementation of remote work, employers may not be aware of what they are paying for. While this doesn’t apply to everyone, a significant portion of the workforce is taking advantage.. This behavior is not just a one-time occurrence. In fact, some employees are even using virtual backgrounds of their usual remote work locations to deceive their coworkers.
- Over half of the surveyed group admitted to giving their employer the impression that they were working the usual number of hours, not fewer. Among them, 65% resorted to using virtual backgrounds to trick their employers. But what motivates employees to go to such extents? The survey revealed that 51% of hush trip participants did so because their requests for paid time off were denied, 27% had no remaining PTO, and 20% preferred to save their PTO for future use.
- One-third of the respondents in the survey admitted to working for less than 2 hours per day. Only 14% reported working a full normal workday. The majority of participants, however, stated that they worked an average of 3-4 hours each day.
- Supposedly, the clever tricks employed by participants paid off, as about half of those surveyed successfully got away with their hush trips, and their employers never discovered the truth. However, less than half of the respondents were eventually discovered. Among them, 71% faced reprimands while 7% were terminated from their positions. The question remains: are these consequences enough to deter hush trips from happening again?
