Hesketh's research, which centred on well-being in the UK police service, sought to identify a gap in current thinking around absenteeism and presenteeism;[2] of which there is a plethora of academic study and commentary.
[4] Hesketh and Cooper are currently researching the second aspect of leaveism, associated with using time off such as annual leave, flexitime and other rest day allocations to look after dependents, including both children and elderly relatives; the so-called sandwich generation.
[7] During the pandemic Hesketh and Cooper garnered reflections from many different organisations on what had been the impact and learning practices from what was described as the largest forced workforce experiment of all time (lockdowns).
A culture of long hours and relatively high wages drove officers to use their own vacation time if suffering ill health to continue on additional paid work that was not as emotionally taxing or physically demanding.
[13] The CIPD and Simply Health, following research with over 1,000 HR professionals representing 4.6 million employees in the UK, reported that 69% of respondents had observed leaveism over the last 12 months, and 87% of respondents agreed that technology affected employees' ability to "switch off" out of work hours (element 4 of leaveism), citing that broader public accessibility of personal cell phones and computers enabled people to take phone calls and answer emails outside of working hours.
Steps such as setting clear boundaries between work and personal time, enabling policy-driven culture change and encouraging people to take their annual leave allocation to switch off and relax.
Conversely, there appears to be an enormous rise in a version of elements 3 and 4, in that employees are working incredibly long hours on Zoom, Teams, FaceTime and Skype calls without a break.