Holiday skiing -- or more email? For 27% of us, the no-fun option beckons

Normally, the end-of-year holiday break is all about fun. Travelers savor Colorado ski trips or a week on the beach in Hawaii. For stay-at-home types, joy can be as simple as doing a family jigsaw puzzle or binge-watching Netflix. For everyone, the possibilities on New Year's Eve are endless. 

But 2020 isn't a normal year. In fact, based on the latest findings of LinkedIn’s regular Workforce Confidence surveys, it’s clear that 2020’s end-of-year planning is taking a peculiar turn. 

It’s not just that 31% of respondents say they won’t have much time for the holidays, because they will need to be working at their primary jobs. That’s understandable. What’s far from conventional in this survey of 9,921 LinkedIn members (conducted from Nov. 2 through Nov. 29) is what another 27% of respondents told us.

These workers plan to spend more time than usual checking in with the office. For this large slice of us, the holiday season is likely to be defined by a mantra of “less fun, more work.” Even family movie time might turn into a few disjointed glimpses of the big screen while scrolling through email or text messages.

 As the chart below shows, people working in law (41%), education (35%) or program and project management (32%) are especially likely to be using the holidays to write briefs, grade papers or make one more call to get that deal done. By contrast, people working in healthcare (20%) or human resources (25%) are most likely to unplug completely.

Such relentless work habits are a troubling element of modern life, researchers Laura M. Giurge and Kaitlin Woolley wrote recently in a Harvard Business Review article. Working too many days in a row undermines people’s belief that their work is intrinsically interesting or rewarding, they explained. Everything starts to become a chore. Productivity suffers.

 “The recent global shift to remote work due to the Covid-19 crisis could further exacerbate the situation,” Giurge and Wootley added. “As the formal boundaries that separate work from non-work become even more blurred, employees may feel conflicted about what time is — and isn’t — meant for working.”

 Of course, it’s easier for outsiders to say “you’re working too hard” than for people in the midst of an ultra-demanding job to see the way out. Students are counting on teachers to make it all come together; so are lawyers’ clients. Sometimes it can seem as if there’s no choice but to keep working marathon hours in hopes of getting it all done.

 It’s also worth noting that the coronavirus pandemic has created all sorts of roadblocks to quick, refreshing getaways. Air travel is more difficult; hotels' new safety protocols are jarring, and the Centers for Disease Control keeps telling people to scale back holiday travel. That hasn’t stopped many travelers from getting on the road anyway, but the new barriers are undeniable.

 Stress levels rise in such situations. Within the Workforce Confidence surveys, 69% of respondents say they feel either very stressed or somewhat stressed in their jobs. That overall U.S. number was first reported in the mid-November edition of this Workforce Insights newsletter. The latest round of polling now makes it possible to identify stress level variations on a state-by-state basis.

The chart above shows data for the five states with the highest stress levels according to LinkedIn data. It also includes the five lowest -- with both groups drawn from a cohort of 23 high-population states that had enough survey respondents to enable state-by-state analysis. 

Tennessee (77%) has the unhappy distinction of being the most stressed state in this ranking. That’s consistent with other findings, including a national survey by the Centers for Disease Control, released in September, that showed Tennessee as the state with the highest rates of anxiety and depression among adults. Economic pressures have been rising in Tennessee, too, as seen by a 0.9 point jump in its unemployment rate in October, to 7.4%.   

At the other end of the spectrum, Utah emerged as the least-stressed state (54%). Its October unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%, barely half the national average. In recent days, though, Utah’s COVID-19 case rate per 100,000 population has been among the 10 highest in the United States, though, which could affect the state’s outlook.

Workforce Confidence Index methodology

LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index is based on a quantitative online survey distributed to members via email every two weeks. Roughly 5,000 U.S.-based members respond each wave. Members are randomly sampled and must be opted into research to participate. Students, stay-at-home partners and retirees are excluded from analysis so we can get an accurate representation of those currently active in the workforce. We analyze data in aggregate and will always respect member privacy. Data is weighted by engagement level, to ensure fair representation of various activity levels on the platform. The results represent the world as seen through the lens of LinkedIn’s membership; variances between LinkedIn’s membership & overall market population are not accounted for.

Alex Gunther from LinkedIn Market Research contributed to this article.