What to do if you catch your employee on a quiet vacation, according to an HR exec

• Nolan Church is the CEO at FairComp and Continuum and a former head of talent at DoorDash.
• He says the erosion of manager trust in employees is leading to bad behavior like "quiet vacations."
• Church shares three tactics on how to deal with employees who get caught away from their desks.

"Quiet vacationing" — employees secretly taking time off or using tools to circumvent monitoring software — is rising.

Nolan Church, a cofounder and the CEO of FairComp and Continuum and a former head of talent at DoorDash, says the erosion of manager trust in employees leads to this bad behavior.

"Quiet vacationing is happening for two big reasons: bad managers who manage to the lowest common denominator and the adoption of pedantic parenthood traits into the working world — especially in tech."

In a 2023 survey of 1,000 US business leaders by Resume Builder, 96% of respondents working at organizations with a primarily remote or hybrid workforce said their firms used some form of employee-monitoring software .

Business Insider has previously reported that large corporations like Amazon and JPMorgan monitor how often employees come into the office or even implement software on employees' devices that activate microphones and webcams without the users' knowledge .

In a recent poll of nearly 2,000 US and UK employees, 53% of US employees said they felt their employers weren't being open and transparent about workplace surveillance, and 71% of UK employees said it's unethical.

And like rebellious teenagers, some employees are taking their time back.

Church told BI the two main tactics workers were using to regain autonomy were "installing mouse-moving devices and starting Zoom or Microsoft Teams meetings with themselves because it keeps the computer on and looks like the employee is actively on their computer."

BI has previously reported on employees using mouse jigglers and other methods to take secret vacations or work multiple jobs at once .

Quiet vacationing is a sign of poor company culture and management

Church acknowledged employees looking to do the bare minimum do exist but said the majority of employees don't fall into this category.

"What does it say if an employee feels they can't take an extra day vacation or have to sneak out to go on vacation?" Church said. "You don't trust your employer, and that ultimately is a toxic relationship ."

He said treating a few bad actors with a blanket monitoring solution was a "terrible way to manage" and could negatively affect high-performing people.

Implementing surveillance tools, Church said, sends the wrong message to employees. It says, "I need to make sure that you're at your desk for your working hours, and I'm paying you to have your ass in a seat," he told BI.

Even in globally distributed companies, Church said, proper leadership is key to avoiding a low-performance environment.

Employees should have clear goals and objectives, and companies should measure employee performance based on those metrics, Church added.

He did note that trust is a two-way street. He said employees should be transparent with their employers about wanting or needing time off, adding that employees shouldn't "assume the employer is going to say no" with proper notice.

A one-size-fits-all approach isn't the best way to manage employees who are taking quiet vacations

Punishing top-performing employees for taking a day or two occasionally can lead to top talent exploring opportunities elsewhere, so it's a balancing act, Church said.

As a CEO, Church said if he found out a high-performing employee wasn't at their desk for a certain period, he wouldn't do much. High performers get "special treatment," he said, adding: "They aren't paid to be in their seats; they're paid for the outcomes they can deliver."

However, if someone is the top performer but leaves their colleagues or clients in a lurch, "that's not high-performer behavior," Church said. "In that case," he added, "what I would do is I would very clearly deliver feedback on the behavior that was experienced versus the behavior that was expected."

Church said it's important to give high-performing employees a chance to come clean if caught.

If an employee comes clean, Church said, "document the reason and give them feedback that you expect them to improve and be clear about that." But if they lie, that would be grounds for termination.

For middle-of-the-road and low performers, there are two paths management can take if it finds someone away from their desk for prolonged periods, Church told BI.

"One path is a zero-tolerance policy, and in that path, you immediately move to termination," he said. "The other path is document the violation and give an opportunity to improve."

He added: "This rift between employers and employees is driven by a lack of trust on both sides, and these sorts of surveillance techniques are not helping bridge the rift."

Companies should encourage and support great management first and foremost.

"It's not like people are dumb," Church said. "They'll find ways to skirt the system if they feel like they're not treated like adults."