A ‘hush trip’ has emerged as one of the employee abuses made possible by remote and hybrid work, and in a ResumeBuilder survey of Gen Z workers under age 27, a surprisingly large share admit to having done it.
A hush trip is working from a vacation destination without telling their manager they are on vacation, and sometimes working very little when they go.
The survey found 44% of the 900 or so Gen Z office, remote or hybrid workers responding had taken such a trip, and many have taken those trips to an extremely deceptive level.
“Fifty-seven percent of those who have taken one of those hush trips made it look like they were working,” said Stacie Haller, chief career advisor at Resume Builder. “So they might take a Zoom call and make the virtual background their home office.”
Why try to deceive an employer with unauthorized time off?
“Half of them told us they were taking it because their vacation wasn’t approved, 20% were taking it because they didn’t want to use a vacation day, and 27% had run out of vacation days,” Haller said.
Of those hush trippers surveyed, 45% say they have gotten away with it, 14% weren’t sure if their manager found out, and 41% were caught.
But of those caught, 71% said they were reprimanded, and only 7% said they were fired. Even without losing their job, though, the damage has already been done.
“Managers don’t like employees that lie to them,” Haller said. “So, even though they were just reprimanded, I would caution those employees to be very careful because they’ve already shown their managers they don’t always tell the truth.”
Hush trips may also suggest a problem with the way paid time off is handled by companies, according to Peter Michaels, CEO of Yeespy, which markets remote worker productivity trackers, like key loggers and call log monitoring.
“Businesses must work to foster a work climate where staff members feel free to request PTO when necessary and can take time off as needed,” he said. “Companies may need to review their PTO policies to ensure staff have enough options to take breaks and recharge without worrying about consequences of being refused time off.”
