Leaveism
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The practice of employees using flexitime and other leave entitlement schemes to take time off when they are in fact too unwell to go to work. uncountable
- 2 The practice of employees taking work away to complete outside of paid hours, e.g. at home or on holiday. uncountable
"Allied to this is the greater prevalence of 'leaveism', where employees are unable to disconnect from work because of the increased use of technology. It occurs when staff utilise allocated time-off, including annual leave and rest days, to catch up on work obligations and to take work home with them that cannot be completed in normal working hours."
Example
More examples"Allied to this is the greater prevalence of 'leaveism', where employees are unable to disconnect from work because of the increased use of technology. It occurs when staff utilise allocated time-off, including annual leave and rest days, to catch up on work obligations and to take work home with them that cannot be completed in normal working hours."
Etymology
From the noun leave (“permission to be absent”) + -ism, coined in 2013 by Dr Ian Hesketh when researching wellbeing of UK police workers.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.