Forget ‘quiet quitting’, ‘act your wage’, or ‘career cushioning’, the latest workplace trend to take social media by storm is ‘quiet vacationing’.
If you’ve never heard of it, it’s basically when people take advantage of the flexibility of their job to work remotely from somewhere that’s not their home, without permission from their boss.
But while it may seem relatively harmless if you’re still getting all of your work done alongside your holiday, it could land you and your employer in hot water.
How common is ‘quiet vacationing’ and why do people do it?
Almost half (45 per cent) of full-time office workers in Australia have either already worked or would consider working remotely from a holiday destination without telling their employer, according to recent research commissioned by recruitment company Robert Half.
The youngest members of the workforce were twice as likely as their older colleagues to go on a quiet vacation, or at least think about it.
Around two-thirds (67 per cent) of Baby Boomers said they hadn’t done it and wouldn’t consider it, compared to less than half (43 per cent) of Gen Z employees.
While the most common reason cited for ‘quiet vacationing’ was to make the most of flexible working conditions, a quarter of employees said they did it because their employer wouldn’t have approved their leave if they’d asked for it.
Could you get sacked if your boss finds out?
Over a third (36 per cent) of those surveyed didn’t believe they would face any consequences if their employer found out they were ‘quiet vacationing’.
Just 7 per cent thought they would be sacked for it.
Giuseppe Carabetta, an associate professor of employment law at the University of Technology Sydney, said depending on the circumstances, the deceitful nature of ‘quiet vacationing’ could constitute a disciplinary breach.
“It may form a valid reason for dismissal … especially if the employer has a policy on point and/or a code of conduct that warns against such conduct,” he said.
The Fair Work Commission recently rejected an unfair dismissal claim from a man who was fired from the Bureau of Meteorology for secretly working from overseas for weeks, finding the punishment “was not harsh, unjust or unreasonable”.
But losing your job isn’t the only potential ramification, industrial relations barrister Ian Neil warned.
“One of the other risks for an employer in any remote working is the possibility that their databases and electronic communication systems will be compromised,” he said.
“In practical terms, that risk is very much greater if people are connecting to computer systems from some countries overseas, or from the Wi-Fi network of a café in Australia, for example.
“An employer not only faces that increased risk, but has no real capacity to guard against it — or at least the capacity to do so is diminished if they don’t even know that it’s happening.”
If you’re logging on from overseas, you could also face serious tax and visa implications, Neil said.
“There are some countries in the world that levy tax on income earned by somebody while working in that country or received by them while in that country, regardless of where the employer is; there are some countries whose visa conditions do not allow paid work, even for an employer located remotely in Australia; there are some Australian visas that have conditions attached to them that would be affected by work performed by that employee overseas,” he said.
It could also put your employer at risk of violating their health and safety obligations to you, Carabetta said.
“The employer owes a duty of care and to prevent, to the extent practicable, valid workplace risks — yet, the employee might be in a risky location or suffering from fatigue or stress in trying to juggle things,” he said.
“For employees, if they don’t disclose, there may be implications for insurance or workers compensation coverage, depending on the particular circumstances.”
On a more practical level, you need to be conscious of any time differences between where you’re travelling to and where your employer is based so they “don’t get you caught out or exhaust you”, Carabetta added.
“They (quiet vacationers) should also be careful about what they’re sharing on social media; and realise that if a sophisticated well-resourced employer wants to, I’m pretty sure they can work out your physical location when interacting with you online,” he said.
Working from anywhere in the world to become ‘more and more common’
John Hopkins is an associate professor of management at Swinburne University of Technology and a leading researcher in flexible and remote work trends.
He said he expected being able to work from anywhere in the world would become “more and more common” in the coming years.
“The ability for people to go and work in different places, be that interstate or overseas and still hold down their job in Australia, I think that is only going to increase,” he said.
“In terms of the tax implications and the visa status of working overseas, I think that it will be easier to work wherever you want to work in the future than it is now.”
Regardless, Hopkins believes “honesty is always the best policy”.
“Anything that you do without permission, I think you’re asking for trouble … so definitely speak to your boss about it and be aware, if you haven’t, the risks that could happen if you’re found doing this,” he said.
