In many organizations, the Lunar New Year holiday still takes place as scheduled, but the process of resting does not. Employees leave the office, but they do not leave work behind. Emails are still checked, messages are still answered, and a state of being “always available” continues throughout the holiday.
This phenomenon is known as leaveism, where time off is used to continue working or to sustain work-related mental pressure. Although the holiday exists on the calendar, the ability to restore energy and focus afterward is not guaranteed, leading to little improvement in post-holiday performance, and in some organizations, even a decline.
1. Holidays, wellbeing, and performance: why time off does not equal recovery
A meta-analysis by de Bloom and colleagues, published in the Journal of Occupational Health in 2009, synthesized findings from multiple experimental studies across different countries and showed that holidays have a clear positive effect on employee wellbeing. Notably, this effect does not only occur during the holiday itself, but also persists for a period after employees return to work, although it tends to gradually diminish if work pressure returns to previous levels.
The studies in this analysis also indicate that post-holiday recovery is not the same for everyone. The effectiveness of recovery depends largely on whether employees are able to mentally disengage from work during their time off. When they can disconnect from work demands, positive energy and mental states tend to last longer after returning to work, rather than improving only briefly.
2. Leaveism: when employees are “on leave” but still carrying work with them
Despite the well-documented benefits of holidays, many organizations face a common paradox: employees have time off, but do not truly recover. One frequently cited reason in recent research is leaveism-the situation in which employees use their leave to continue working, or maintain a state of being “always available” during their holiday.
This concept has been discussed in research and reports by Dr. Ian Hesketh, as well as in surveys conducted by the CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) in the United Kingdom. The findings show that a significant proportion of employees admit that they continue to check emails, handle work tasks, or fail to fully detach from work during their leave.
In addition, many studies point out that if work pressure has been heavily accumulated before the holiday, the capacity for recovery during the holiday will be limited, even if the break itself is uninterrupted. Resting while already deeply exhausted rarely delivers the expected benefits.
This reality was also analyzed by Jungji in the article Year-End Burnout as a Strategic Signal for Organizations, which shows that holidays only provide clear restorative effects if employees enter them with energy levels that have not already been excessively depleted by accumulated pressure beforehand. This suggests that the issue is not whether employees have holidays, but the state in which they enter those holidays and their ability to genuinely disengage from work during that time.
3. Viewing holidays as part of a long-term wellbeing strategy
From a management perspective, these data suggest that holidays need to be seen as part of a broader strategy for managing wellbeing and human energy, rather than simply a scheduled benefit.
The issue is not about giving more or fewer days off, but about how organizations:
• Distribute work rhythms before major breaks.
• Enable employees to truly disconnect during their leave.
• Track post-leave recovery as an important wellbeing indicator.
When holidays are expected to carry the entire burden of recovery for a long work cycle, a slow or difficult return afterward is predictable. By contrast, when energy is managed consistently throughout the year, holidays allow recovery to happen more fully and help maintain a stable work rhythm, rather than becoming the sole compensation point for chronic overload.
4. Jungji’s role in managing human energy
In this context, Jungji approaches leaveism and wellbeing as a cyclical human energy management challenge, rather than addressing each phenomenon in isolation. Jungji helps organizations clearly understand the actual energy state of their teams before and after leave periods, and from there design proactive interventions to reduce the gap between time off on the calendar and real recovery capacity.
When wellbeing is placed at the center of management thinking, holidays do not simply help employees return to work, but help them return with energy, clarity, and a more sustainable capacity to contribute to the organization over the long term.
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