In the common imagination, the holidays they represent a moment of professional disconnection in which to dedicate yourself to physical and mental recovery. Yet, for the 44% of Italians work continues to take up space even during the holidays. The latest to photograph this trend Workforce Confidence Index of LinkedIn, a survey that periodically analyzes the relationship between Italians and the world of work.
Second the report:
- 44% of Italians continue to check work emails, calls or messages during holidays;
- the phenomenon changes a lot based on age: between the Baby Boomers the share goes up at 60%While Generation Z reaches 27%;
- 16% of those interviewed say they feel guilty when he is not working;
- at the same time, the 67% of Italians say they “work to live” and not the other way around, with an even higher percentage between Millennials (74%) e Generation Z (75%).
At first glance these data almost seem to contradict each other. While most people say they want to maintain a work-life balance, because almost one in two continues to monitor company communications even during the holidays?
The most immediate answer might be that today we simply are more connected: smartphones, company chats and emails make us available anywhere and at any time. But this interpretation, alone, is not enough to explain the phenomenon. Beyond technology, they come into play the way we live our professional rolethe sense of responsibility and the value we attribute to work in defining our personal value.
The problem isn’t the email: it’s being able to really “switch off”.
Scientific research speaks of psychological detachment from workthat is, the ability to interrupt mental involvement with work during free time.
This concept was developed by German psychologist Sabine Sonnentagwhich has been studying the psychophysical recovery of workers for over twenty years. According to his model, “detach” it doesn’t mean simply stopping work or turning off your computer. It means being able to also stop work-related thoughts. Continuing to think about a meeting, imagining the next week or constantly checking emails prevents correct psychological recovery, which allows you to reduce stress and recover energy.
Numerous studies, in fact, show that who can disconnect mentally during free time presents lower levels of stress e burnout and greater general well-being. Conversely, a constant mental connection to work is associated with greater emotional fatigue and less effective recovery.
In this sense, the 44% figure could indicate not so much a greater industriousness of Italians, but rather a increasing difficulty in leaving work outside of working hours.
When the work it becomes part of our identity
But why is it so difficult for some people to disconnect? A possible explanation comes from another central concept of work psychology: there work centrality.
The term, introduced by sociologist Benjamin Mannheim and subsequently deepened by Meaning of Working International Research Team, describes how work occupies a central position in the construction of our identity. It’s not about the number of hours worked, but about the meaning we attribute to work.
For some people, work it is primarily a means of obtaining a salary; for others represents a source of personal fulfillmentsocial recognition and sense of belonging.
A recent meta-analysis published in Journal of Vocational Behaviorwhich synthesized over fifty years of research on more than 125,000 participants, shows that a work centrality high is associated with greater motivation, involvement and job satisfaction.
But it also highlights a possibility downside of the coin. When work becomes the main element through which we define ourselves, the probability that invades other areas of lifemaking it harder to truly recover during your free time. The problem, therefore, arises when our work becomes so central that it is difficult to stop thinking about it.
From this perspective, checking emails during the holidays no longer tells us just about a simple digital habit, it tells us that, in one society in which being productive is often synonymous with being validwork risks transforming from an activity to an identity.
“I am worth it because I produce”: psychology studies
Within this social scenario, therefore, unplugging does not just mean closing the computer, but… putting a part of how we define ourselves on hold. And this is perhaps why some people continue to check their notifications even on the beach: not because responding to that email is really essential, but because unconsciously, continuing to work can still make them feel useful, competent and sufficiently fulfilled.
This is where a mechanism studied by work psychology comes into play: la Performance-Based Self-Esteem (PBSE). According to this model, proposed by L. Hallsten and colleaguessome people tend to evaluate their personal value primarily based on their performance. In this case work does not just represent an activity to be carried out, but becomes a criterion by which one can measure oneself.
The reasoning, often unconsciously, starts from “Today I worked a lot” and arrives at “Today I’m worth it because I worked a lot.”
The difference is subtle but It’s psychologically huge. This attitude stimulates thoughts like: “If I stop, I’m wasting time”, “If I’m not available, I’m doing something wrong”.
When self-esteem depends on productivity, too rest can be experienced with discomfort. Stopping means, at least temporarily, interrupting that source of personal confirmation and that sense of responsibility that defines us positively (in our eyes and also in those of others!). It is also from this perspective that the LinkedIn data according to which the 16% of Italians say they feel guilty when they don’t work.
Being engaged doesn’t mean being addicted to work
But does this mean that those who check their emails on holiday are addicted to work? Not necessarily.
We often tend to talk about workaholism, that is, of work addictionbut the scientific literature invites us to make an important distinction. According to some insights into the model proposed by psychologist Wilmar SchaufeliThe workaholism it is not simply about working hard or being very involved in your profession. The main feature is the compulsion to work: the feeling of not being able to stop, accompanied by constant internal pressure (“I keep working because it’s the only way to lower my anxiety levels”). The workaholism, in short, it represents the extreme of a continuum, in which work stops being a choice and becomes a psychological need difficult to control.
But a person can deeply love their work, think about it often, and devote a lot of energy to it without being workaholic. For this reason, it would be incorrect to interpret the 44% of Italians who check emails during holidays as a sign of work addiction. Rather, these data seem to suggest an increasing difficulty in mentally disconnecting from the professional role.
Are the new generations changing their perspective?
The comparison between generations tells a story cultural change interesting. Second the LinkedIn reportGeneration Z is the least likely to check work communications during vacations and the most likely to say they work for a living, rather than the other way around.
This doesn’t mean that younger people work less or are less motivated, but that they stay changing the criteria by which we define success. More and more people also attribute value to other aspects of identity (relationships, free time, personal experiences and mental health), reducing the weight that work has had for decades in building one’s personal value. It’s a cultural shift that’s still underway, but one that could explain why young people seem to be able, at least in part, to better protect their free time and recovery.
