Holiday wars: UK IT Workaholics beaten by the Germans

It's silly season, and of course holidays are the topic of the moment.

So when a survey from the IT Job Board about holidays came across my desk, it deserved a read. People, it seems, are not taking their holiday entitlement:  only two thirds (66 percent) of Brits use their allocated holiday entitlement, compared with just over one third (41 percent) for Germany

In the IT department this is marked by a third claiming a couple of days as pay instead of holiday, but in Germany a fifth are missing out on two weeks or more.

Why? The answer may lie here:

- slightly under half of IT workers find the extra workload ahead of taking a holiday hugely stressful - and with all that manic tying off of ends and delegating, I can identify with that one;

- 40 percent of Brits said they would look at emails once a day; and 35 percent of Germans advised they would go online a few times per week;

- two thirds of British and 40 percent of German IT pros take their mobile phone abroad;

-around one in five IT pros it takes them around three days to finally relax and forget about work 

So is it worth going on holiday?

Holidays certainly seem to have a positive impact on work efficiency, with 34 percent of Brits stating they always work better after a holiday; the figure stood at 48 percent for the German market.  Perhaps the lesson here is that the Brits should leave the phones and emails at home, and the Germans should take more holiday!