On Holiday but Still Thinking About Work? Why Is It So Hard to Switch Off?

JAKARTA — Annual leave and holidays should be opportunities to recharge and step away from work routines. In reality, however, many workers find themselves carrying the burden of the office with them while on holiday.

They still bring their laptops, check work notifications and even spend journeys home or holidays completing overdue office tasks. The difficulty of truly switching off was a key focus of a talk entitled “Real Voice, Real Change: Let’s Create a Healthy Workplace”, organised by PIP Unpad and Unpad Jakarta Campus to mark World Mental Health Day, observed on 10 October 2026.

During the discussion, psychologist Fredrick Dermawan Purba, who is also head of the Master’s and Doctoral programmes in Psychology at Universitas Padjadjaran, said people’s attitudes towards work are strongly influenced by their generation and the environment in which they grew up. He noted that millennials often take work with them on leave because they were shaped by the belief that hard work is the only route to success.

Generation Z, by contrast, tends to have a different view of balancing life and career. “Millennials were brought up by the generation before them to believe that hard work is the key to success. For Gen Z, working smart and being happy are the keys,” Fredrick said in Jakarta on Friday (9 October 2026).

These differing generational outlooks do not mean that one group is necessarily better than the other. Life challenges, family responsibilities and workplace dynamics also shape how people cope in their professional lives.

Some workers recognise that their workplace is unhealthy but feel trapped because finding a new job is difficult amid economic uncertainty. This dilemma leaves some caught between two fears. “They are afraid to leave, but also afraid to stay,” Fredrick said.