3 months ago
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By Emily Chantiri
November 7, 2025 — 5.01am
A father of two young children, Adam* was desperate to take some time off to spend with them. However, the nature of his work – a high-pressure IT role – kept complicating things.
“Working for an international company meant I was always on. I had to take calls when my kids were home and when I’m making dinner, sometimes as late as 10pm and early as 6am,” he says.
Feel like you can’t take leave? It could be wearing you down.Credit: iStock
“My meetings were late at night; everyone’s childcare mattered except mine. I tried my best to manage this, but the pressure was increasing.”
Taking leave was another issue entirely, often being dictated by quarter-end company results.
“When I’d get leave, it had to be after quarterly figures were released. It never coincided with my kid’s school holidays. I could get the Christmas days off, but I didn’t need it so much as my partner was home during this time,” he says.
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“They dictated when I could take my leave.” Even after his grandmother passed away, Adam still found his workplace reluctant to grant him leave.
“I was given five days’ compassionate leave to return to the UK for the funeral. I requested another five days carers leave, but they insisted it had to be annual leave. I was very disappointed because I’d been a good worker for eight years.”
By end of May 2025, and with full support of his partner, Adam decided to leave the company. By the time he’d quit, he had accrued 45 days of leave. He now plans to take the holiday season off and spend it with his family. The next role, he says, will definitely be less global.
Aussies hoarding leave
Adam’s situation is far from unique. A 2024 report from HR and software company ELMO, Employee Sentiment Index, found Australian employees have 160 million days of annual leave banked. The index included a survey of 1000 employees from July to September 2024.
More than a fifth – 22 per cent – of Australian employees have accrued four weeks or more, while the average employee has just under 16 days of annual leave accrued. The data also revealed 43 per cent of employees are feeling burnt out, and 43 per cent report their workload has increased.
Gen Z employees are feeling the pressure more than their older colleagues, with 52 per cent of respondents feeling burnt out by the end of 2024.
Of those employees, 61 per cent said they felt there was a barrier to going on leave, saying they were too busy at work, while 18 per cent said they couldn’t afford to go away on holiday.
Job security and the current economic climate contributed to employee mindsets, with 29 per cent of surveyed workers anticipating redundancies in the next quarter and 38 per cent feeling they need to work longer and harder to keep their jobs secure.
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The ripple effect
HR expert Constance Aloe, founder of Distinctive People, said that when leave goes untaken, the ripple effects hit productivity, error rates, turnover and ultimately the bottom line.
For example, Aloe adds that in NSW, it’s been reported that psychological injury claims make up 12 per cent of all workers’ compensation claims but account for 38 per cent of scheme costs, with the average psychological claim rising to around $288,542 in 2024-25.
“Employees who never truly switch off risk burnout, psychological injury and long-term absence – a far higher cost than the unused leave days,” she says.
*Name changed to protect privacy.
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