The English language is beautiful, usually. It contains words such as “crepuscular,” “grotty” and “awkward.” Language is a living thing which must change and adapt. I’m not against the introduction of the occasional neologism, of which “grotty” is a good example.
But another new term came across my desk—well, into my inbox—the other day, which did not bring joy. The word was “workcation.” By this I think we are supposed to understand that something like a holiday can be taken while work is still being done.
Call me a narrow monotasker if you like. Denounce my lack of imagination. But it seems to me that there is something called holiday or vacation, which is essentially a leisure activity, and something called work, which is not. You are really doing one thing or the other. And most attempts to blend or merge the two will not end well.
A company called My Favourite Cottages had wanted me to hear about this new workcation concept. Many workers are “keen to explore new avenues of working,” the company said. “Think Zoom meetings by the beach or sifting through emails while looking at rolling hills,” it went on.
A Zoom meeting by the beach, I have to admit, is very unlikely to hold my undivided attention. If there are rolling hills before my eyes the chances of me reading to the end of an email are, I suggest, slim. The problem here is what might be called a category error. When life is a beach, work is the last thing on your mind. A good meeting requires your concentration and wholehearted participation. Beach volleyball in the background will only put you off.
It might be a good idea to immerse yourself in nature while carrying out your work. Who doesn’t like a nice weekend away in a cottage somewhere? Green spaces can be soothing and even inspiring. But what you will be doing is work. The -cation suffix is unjustified and misleading. It will be all work and minimal vacation, even if there is somewhere nice to go for dinner later.
The dubious concept of a workcation is really another way of describing the permawork that has been inflicted on so many people during the pandemic. We have been, as many have observed, not so much “working from home” as living at work. It never stops. You may be wearing shorts and have a glass of wine in your hand, but you are still working.
New analysis from the HR body the CIPD has confirmed that there have in fact been fewer flexible working arrangements on offer to employees in recent times. It has been an “always on” moment. Real flexibility means having a say, and some choice over when and how you work. There is nothing very flexible about answering emails late at night or being summoned to Zoom meetings at the weekend.
And this is the serious point. Under the guise of something called a workcation, or supposed flexibility—“hybrid working”—employers could be putting people’s health at risk. As Stephen Bevan, head of HR research at the Institute for Employment Studies, wrote the other day: “It has become very fashionable for companies to talk about ‘hybrid’ working lately. But it’s an imprecise concept, and if businesses are to give employees clarity around what can be done at home and what needs to happen at a traditional workplace, they will need to decide which jobs truly need to be done at a particular time or location.”
Bevan added: “Getting this wrong may risk compromising the mental health of employees—for example, if prolonged remote working increases isolation or increases work intensity. It may also mean that companies never quite manage to deliver the long-term productivity gains they are hoping to secure once lockdown is over.”
The concept of a workcation is not completely new. It had been discussed before anyone had ever heard of Covid-19. There have also been sightings of an even more unattractive word, a combination of business and leisure… “bleisure.” (Don’t blame me, I didn’t invent it.)
I hope managers and employees will soon start having constructive and open discussions about how we are all going to get work done in the future. There should be a lot more agreed flexibility, from day one in a job. We won’t all have to commute five days a week if we don’t want to, and that must be a good thing.
But this will mean being honest about what employers need and what employees can deliver. As for the workcation, I think it should go on an extended holiday.
