Calendar Chaos

It’s part of the job description for any manager—figuring out how to keep things running when their direct reports are taking time off. But it’s especially difficult when the manager has no idea who’s going away and who’s not.

More than four in ten workers have gone on a “quiet vacation” this year, essentially taking time off without officially requesting it, according to one new survey. Among those who’ve quiet-vacationed in 2025, only 3% have done it once, while more than a quarter of the workforce have done it four times, for between one and four days at a pop. All of which can be frustrating, if not infuriating, to managers, who are left wondering when to schedule meetings and deadlines, not to mention how to meet their own bosses’ expectations. “We’ve been in situations where we had to delay projects,” says Iktimal Daneshvar, Korn Ferry’s vice president of recruitment process outsourcing in EMEA.

The unannounced time away isn’t the only thing that irks some managers about modern vacation patterns. Some employees simply announce they’re going to be away on certain dates, not even giving the manager a chance to say no. Then there’s extended time off: The Fourth of July, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving used to be one- or two-day breaks, but HR pros say workers are now stretching them into whole weeks. In Europe, meanwhile, professionals are known to take multiple weeks off in the summer, but sometimes, without prior notice, two weeks becomes an entire month.

To be sure, workers say it’s a sign that they’re being pushed too hard—they feel they need the time off to rest, but are afraid of being turned down. And most managers understand that time off, even extended time off, is a necessary part of the job. “It’s a positive both for employees’ mental health and retention of talent,” says Radhika Papandreou, Korn Ferry’s president of North America.

But these fundamental changes in vacation patterns have left many leaders scrambling to cover critical work areas. Kate Shattuck, a Korn Ferry managing partner, says she has heard of bosses finding out only after the fact that an employee has taken the afternoon off. “You end up with really tough conversations afterward,” Shattuck says. For a manager, this kind of situation can really sting, and a truly infuriated boss could, in most cases, legally fire their employee, because the law gives US employers wide latitude in setting rules around time off.

To some degree, the quiet-vacation phenomenon started during the pandemic, experts say. Back then, from the employee’s perspective, taking an extra day off without expressly asking permission didn’t seem like a big deal, especially since employers were making so many demands on their time. Today, the feeling persists, with many in the workforce saying that firms are significantly raising productivity expectations while also asking everyone to return to the office. Employees are quick to point out that some bosses are pushing them to put in sixty-hour workweeks and attend 8 PM meetings. And then there’s the vacation time that wasn’t: bosses asking—sometimes, not politely—that workers return to work during previously approved vacations. Indeed, the Hamptons getaways of many investment bankers were interrupted this summer by a series of new merger deals.

Experts say that managers should set clear expectations for direct reports around communicating when they want to take time off, including what they need to do before leaving. Some managers might not care; others might want their direct reports to set up out-of-office emails or brief them on the status of projects. After setting these expectations, firms have multiple ways to keep track of who’s gone when. JP Sniffen, leader of Korn Ferry’s Military Center of Expertise and Physical Security practice, initially tried to set up a shared calendar for his employees, but found that sometimes they forgot to block off their vacation time. Ultimately, he decided to ask them to email him their dates, and that has worked.

Other managers build systems to soften the blow of people being away. For her part, Shattuck ensures that multiple partners go out on client visits. That way, if one is away, there’s still another one who can work with the client. “Two minds are always better than one,” she says.

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