Manish Pant scampered to look for his sweater as he logged in for a work Zoom call. The sweater wasn’t to keep away the cold; it was to make his boss believe that he was at home in Nainital, and not in Goa. Planning and subterfuge became part of Pant’s work repertoire as he stayed in Goa for two weeks, mixing work with pleasure—all without informing his supervisor. You see, he was on Workation.
The pandemic, though was over two years ago, catalysed alternate options for almost everything. Workcations, which combine work and vacations combines business travel with leisure trips. Now, with companies asking employees to come back to the office, a new travel trend has appeared— hush trips.
Travel enthusiasts say the idea of a ‘hush trip’ is simple: it lets employees work remotely from a location other than their usual one, without informing their employers. Hush-trippers continue to do their work tasks and take meetings, from hotel rooms and coffee shops, without mentioning where they are located.
A recent Monster survey revealed that about a third of employees think their supervisors don’t need to know where they work remotely. Vicki Salemi, career expert for Monster, believes hush trips are popular because people have become more mobile with the rise of post-pandemic remote work. “At first, we had no choice but to work from home, but that expanded once the world started opening up again,” she says.
People have been working from exotic locations, not to take “time off to enjoy the location, but rather enjoying it at night and on weekends to make the best of both worlds,” Salemi explains.
Hush trips seem to have become a part of working life, with more HR departments wishing to bring employees back. “Post-Covid, we enjoyed being digital nomads. We realised that we didn’t have to be in the office to get work done. Now, with work from office becoming mandatory, many are planning hush trips to get their travel fix,” Pant says.
