Many employees keep mum about these trips to fend off productivity concerns and tax ramification questions from their employers.
But others told CNBC Travel they stay quiet for various reasons. Each asked CNBC to refrain from publishing their full names to forestall being identified by their employers.
Avoiding the ‘hassle’ of company approval
A Singaporean named Alicia said she’s taken several trips without telling her employer.
“It is easy for me since I do not have to go to the office, and my manager is not even based in the identical region,” she said.
Her employer, a tech company in Singapore, also has a 30-day distant working policy, she said. But she hasn’t applied for it because “I’d somewhat not undergo the trouble of applying and getting approvals, which may take weeks.”
She spoke to CNBC Travel during a one-month trip to Thailand, her longest covert trip yet, she said. For other trips, she prolonged her time away without telling her employer “in order to not burn though … PTO days.”
Workcations vs. hush trips
- 45% of employees have taken a workcation previously yr
- 8% didn’t inform their corporations
- Top reasons: to go to family and friends (51%); change of scenery (48%); and to remain productive at work (44%)
To this point, her trips have all been in Asia, so she will stay on similar time zones to simply attend meetings. To cover her location, she blurs her video call backgrounds, or uses a virtual background, and keeps small refer to a minimum to forestall unwanted questions, she said.
“I do not like to lie blatantly, and that will not occur when the questions don’t come,” she said.
Alicia said before traveling she slowly reduced how often she went into the office and joined colleagues for after-work drinks, which has made it easier to slide away for brief stints.
But not everybody has been so lucky.
“I do know individuals who have done [hush trips], and their manager calls for an in-person meeting with a client the day before,” she said. “They’d must book a ticket back ASAP.”
Alicia said one reason she’s not fearful about getting discovered by her employer is that she recently resigned from her position.
“I’m serving my notice period this month,” she said. “If I get caught, it doesn’t really matter to me.”
Neither traveling nor her resignation has affected her work ethic, she said.
“At the tip of the day, I’m still delivering on my job.”
Concerns about coworkers
Maryland resident Ellie said she’s taken two hush trips to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley previously yr.
“My employer wouldn’t mind, nevertheless I don’t need in-office co-workers to be envious or feel like I’m not working to the identical capability,” she said.
She works within the office two to a few days per week for her job in digital marketing, she said. When she leaves, she travels outside of labor hours, she said, departing after work on Wednesdays and dealing remotely for the remainder of the week.
If I may be in nature before and after my work hours, I’m all the time happier.
Like Alicia, Ellie relies on background filters for Zoom calls and recommends checking Wi-Fi and cell phone service before booking a visit. To this point, the one hiccups she’s encountered on her trips relate to web connectivity.
“I’m an enormous camper and love the outside,” she said. “If I may be in nature before and after my work hours, I’m all the time happier — so long as there’s Wi-Fi!”
Corporations at nighttime
While hush trips are working for some employees, it isn’t ideal for corporations to be at nighttime about their their employees’ locations, said Amy Zimmerman, chief people officer on the digital payments company Relay Payments.
“It is important to foster an environment where the team member is honest about their travel and [it] doesn’t turn it right into a ‘hush trip,'” she said.
At the identical time, employees who’re given leeway to take workcations should follow common sense guidelines while away, Zimmerman said.
“For instance, it isn’t common sense to take a Zoom meeting from the pool while in your bathing suit,” she said. And for trips where employees are “missing vital meetings or having others pick up your slack … it is best to take PTO somewhat than attempting to work during your travel.”
An account executive at a public relations agency in Singapore, who asked to stay anonymous, told CNBC Travel that he occasionally traveled without informing his superiors at his previous job because he rarely had physical meetings and worked mostly from home. He said he switched off his webcam during meetings and avoided talking concerning the weather to mask his location.
But he doesn’t need to do this anymore, he said, because his recent employer has a versatile work policy that permits him to travel while staying on the clock.
“Thankfully with my current company, we’re very open with work from overseas arrangements,” he said. “Several of my colleagues have homes in Malaysia … they usually travel between Singapore and Malaysia on a weekly basis.”