An outline of the study
Tourism Australia commissioned Jones Donald Strategy Partners, a Sydney based research company, to conduct a study on annual leave accrual in Australia. The study incorporated a mix of qualitative and quantitative research methods including focus groups and self-completion online surveys and was in field in February and March 2009. An ongoing survey will be conducted on a quarterly basis to track attitudinal and behavioural changes over time. For the purpose of this research summary, all findings are from Jones Donald Strategy Partners unless otherwise noted.
Our Key Findings
- Australia has 123 million days of accrued annual leave by full-time employees. This equates to $33.3 billion in wages as of December 2008 (Roy Morgan Research)
- Annual leave accrual by full-time employees has grown by 11% from December 2006 to December 2008 (Roy Morgan Research)
- Annual leave accrual is endemic across all sizes of business and industries. No business is too big or small to feel the impact of accrued leave. Annual leave stockpiling has become entrenched workplace behaviour potentially affecting every business regardless of size or type
- 1 in 4 of Australian full-time employees are leave stockpilers (Roy Morgan Research)
- 73% of stockpilers consider work/life balance (WLB) an important aspect of their life
- 70% of stockpilers agree that annual leave positively impacts work/life balance (WLB)
- Only 56% of stockpilers believe that their employer is generally supportive of leave taking
- 80% of stockpilers cite personal barriers to leave-taking
- 57% of stockpilers consider work related barriers prevent them from taking leave compared to 48% of non stockpilers. Concern about workload before and after leaveis the main barrier (30%)
- Stockpilers' strongest perceived benefits of annual leave are passive in nature
- Females are more likely to have sole responsibility for decisions about leave taking (47%) compared to males (34%)
- Whilst over half of leave stockpilers are employed in private industry, employees in the public sector are more likely to accrue leave than their private sector counterparts