Brilliant for work-life balance': how Britain is embracing the workation'

"That was her first taste of a workation combining working with a holiday and she loved it. She now regularly arranges petsitting in different places so she can visit family, friends and new cities for long weekends without spending extra. I just think it's brilliant for work-life balance. It's a great way to have a change of scene your evenings and weekends, you feel like you're on a mini-holiday, she said. It's just getting out in nature, a different perspective, different environment."

"As a conference manager at a university, she needs to be in her hometown when she's organising an event, but otherwise she can work anywhere where she can take a laptop. Her employer doesn't have a formal policy, but managers will consider all requests. It all comes down to individual relationships and trust, and having that autonomy I know my deadlines, my role and what I need to get done; that doesn't change if I'm at home or elsewhere, she said."

Katherine began taking workations after extending a trip to Australia and working remotely; she now arranges petsitting to visit family, friends and new cities without extra cost. Workations provide a change of scene, time in nature and a mini-holiday feeling while maintaining work responsibilities. As a conference manager, Katherine must be local for events but can otherwise work anywhere with a laptop; her employer lacks a formal policy yet managers consider requests based on trust and autonomy. Research from the Chartered Management Institute found one in eight employers have a formal workation policy and one in five managers had taken a workation. Most managers perceived benefits for mental health and work-life balance, though some raised data security concerns.

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