Taking paid holidays in Japan

A survey from the internet service provider (with a sideline in surveys) Biglobe into paid holidays revealed the sorry state of paid holiday usage in Japan.

As an employee of a company with proactive holiday-taking initiatives, such as three 10-day holidays per year, a recommendation to take two paid holidays per month (with follow-up if you fall too far behind), and a requirement to take a minimum of 80% of our 25 or so holidays (plus publics) each year with a recommendation to take all 100%, it still is difficult to take more than two consecutive days of personal holidays. Conversely, it is ridiculously easy to take a skive or a man-flu day, which I feel is more of a disruption than a planned week holiday.

At my place of work, I feel the main hindrance to taking holidays is little skill or training in delegation of tasks, plus schedules (if they exist) assume 100% attendance; everyone thinks they are far too important to leave their post for more than a day or two.

Research results

Q1: Why are holidays impossible/difficult to take (or why don’t you take holidays) at work? (Sample size=1,000 multiple answer)

Work is not the sort of place where one takes holidays	33.6%
If I take a holiday my co-workers will have to take my tasks on	22.9%
Co-workers, boss doesn’t take holidays	22.3%
I cannot control my own workload	21.1%
Something might arise that I need to respond to	18.1%
If I take a holiday I have to make it up via overtime later	17.1%
I’d feel guilty if I did	13.1%
I just don’t feel sure I have the courage to ask	11.5%
Too much bother to apply for time off	10.3%
Cannot get permission from my boss	8.7%
My evaluation would suffer	8.5%
Don’t want to take a holiday	8.0%
Other	2.0%

By age groups, significant variants were that those in their twenties were more held back by their colleagues and bosses not taking holidays, whereas the fifties were most likely to just not want to take a holiday.

Comparing management level with ordinary employees, managers were most worried about something cropping up while on holiday, whereas ordinary employees were most held back by the office atmosphere discouraging holidays.

Q2: How do you feel when your boss, underlings, co-workers take a holiday? (Sample size=1,000, multiple answer)

If they are taking a holiday, they ought to take more	35%
I want to take one too	32%
Don’t particularly feel anything	30%
Envious	24%
They must be slacking	12%
Annoyed	4%
Angry	3%
Worried	1%
Other	0%

Q3: What causes you to feel annoyed when your boss, underlings, co-workers take a holiday? (Sample size=1,000, multiple answer)

Don’t feel annoyed	50%
Taking holidays during busy period	24%
Taking holidays without delegating pending work	24%
When they get angry due to mistakes by other workers while they are on holiday	13%
When they take far more holidays than me	10%
When they don’t look apologetic	7%
When I see them enjoying themselves on Facebook	4%
Other	1%

Q4: What would you like to see the most regarding paid holidays? (Sample size=1,000)

Company buy-back of holidays	45.3%
Taking of all paid holidays	33.9%
Increase number of paid holidays	20.8%

Q5: Is your employer taking steps to make holidays easier to take? (Sample size=1,000)

Yes	25.6%
No	74.4%

Q6: To make holidays easier to take, should the employer’s system change or employee attitude change? (Sample size=1,000)

Employer should change	37.9%
Probably employer	28.7%
Probably employee	20.1%
Employee should change	13.3%

Q7: Regarding taking a holiday, do you think you should raise the quality of your work? (Sample size=1,000)

Yes	21.4%
Perhaps	43.0%
Perhaps not	26.6%
No	9.0%

Demographics

Over the 18th and 19th of July 2017 1,000 members of the Biglobe monitor group completed a private smrtphone-based questionnaire. The sex split was 125:125 in each age group of the twenties, thirties, forties and fifties. I would expect that all the respondents were in full-time work, although this was not explicitly stated.