Do We Always Need a Holiday?

What if the coming year were the kind of year when, by next summer, a holiday would not feel like a necessity?

I hope your summer holiday has been restorative and has given you opportunities to relax, recharge and enjoy the things you love. I hope you and your colleagues are returning with renewed energy, fully recharged and ready for the next chapter of work.

Even more than that, I hope the energy and renewal you gained during your holiday do not mysteriously disappear once the holiday ends.

Research shows that the relaxing effects of a holiday tend to fade quite quickly, often within one to two weeks after returning to work. That means employees' energy, recovery and well-being cannot depend on holidays alone. Work itself should be structured in ways that make recovery and well-being a natural part of everyday life.

An Essential Breathing Space

When I follow discussions about working life, I often get the impression that work is hectic, draining and even dangerous. Even when work is meaningful, matches people's skills and feels worthwhile, it is often described as something we need to protect ourselves and others from.

When it comes to holidays, the common assumption is that the demands of work require several weeks of complete detachment during the summer so that people can make it through the next year.

What image of working life are we creating?

What kind of working life, and what kind of perception of working life, are we helping to build?

The idea of a toxic working life is largely at odds with research findings. Over the last 20 years, workplace climates have become more positive. According to the 2025 Working Life Barometer (julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi), 55 per cent of employees said they often or always feel enthusiastic about their work. Forty-nine per cent said they often or always feel full of energy at work, and half reported often or always becoming deeply absorbed in their work.

When it comes to young people, our own research (PDF) suggests that workload is not the main reason they fall out of working life. A bigger challenge is getting into working life in the first place.

Working life certainly involves demands, uncertainty, ambiguity and conflicting expectations. Yet we also have excellent opportunities to make work genuinely beneficial for people. At its best, work offers a sense of achievement, opportunities to learn and grow, meaningful encounters and a feeling of community.

Not a Necessity, but Something to Enjoy

I am not going to tell you how to get your routines back on track after a holiday or how to organise your first days back at work. Instead, I would like to challenge you to think about how you could make this autumn, winter and spring the kind of season that makes next summer's holiday something you look forward to enjoying, rather than something you desperately need.

How could we develop work structures, leadership practices and ways of working so that the next holiday feels like a well-earned change of pace rather than a necessary break? How could work be organised in a way that is both humane and effective so that, by Midsummer 2027, people are not counting on their summer holiday simply to recover?

Encouragement and motivation alone are not enough to make work genuinely good for our health. We also need smart ways of organising work, the courage to identify and challenge ineffective practices, open discussion, meaningful interaction, time and effort.

Simo Levanto
Expert Psychologist, Ilmarinen