Your inbox doesn't need to come on holiday

Autumn break has started, and the Christmas holidays are just around the corner. This is the moment to recover. But looking back at this past summer, the question is whether that will actually happen.

Research from Centraal Beheer's Risk-Aware Entrepreneurship trend study shows that 83% of entrepreneurs remained reachable during the summer holidays for clients, colleagues, emergencies or business email. 57% proactively kept an eye on their business inbox, and 22% always brought work along on holiday. Only 16% were truly unreachable for work-related matters.

You might think this only applies to self-employed people and small business owners. But if even the people who built their own business can't let go, doesn't that also apply to the director, the team leader, or the key employee in your organization? At Vitsall, we see this same pattern in small and medium-sized businesses and in organizations with 50 employees or more, all year round, not just in summer.

The problem doesn't stop when the holiday ends

This behavior isn't a one-off thing that lasts a few weeks. 75% of entrepreneurs don't mind working outside regular hours and appreciate the flexibility. At the same time, 76% work on business matters outside working hours regularly or almost always. Four in ten entrepreneurs experience a high workload, and 28% have shown signs of being overloaded in the past year.

Being reachable feels like commitment. But underneath that commitment lies a risk that often stays invisible until it's too late.

Those who don't switch off, don't recharge

A holiday exists for a reason. It's the moment your mind and body can recover from months of pressure. Anyone who keeps checking email or stays available during this week comes back with an empty battery, heading straight into a busy autumn. That's exactly where absence prevention begins, with the recovery that doesn't happen, long before anyone reports sick. Not waiting until someone collapses, but spotting the signals earlier.

Young entrepreneurs are most at risk

Of entrepreneurs under 40, 55% say their business can't function for even a month without them, compared to 35% of entrepreneurs aged 40 and older. Younger entrepreneurs also report signs of overload more often: 36%, compared to 23% in the older group.

And dropping out isn't a distant risk. According to Statistics Netherlands (CBS), in 2025, 43% of self-employed entrepreneurs between 25 and 35 took sick leave at least once, compared to 29% of entrepreneurs between 55 and 65. Almost a quarter of the entrepreneurs who took sick leave said it was wholly or partly work-related.

Why letting go is so hard, and what you can do about it now

The reason letting go is difficult is rarely a lack of willingness. It's in the way the organization is set up. When knowledge, client contacts and decisions rest with one person, work grinds to a halt the moment that person is offline for a week. That applies to an entrepreneur, but just as much to a director or manager in a company with dozens of employees. It's not too late to sort this out, especially not before the Christmas holidays. Three things help.

Spread knowledge, starting this month. Record who knows what and how key processes work. Make sure at least one other person can take over the work for each key role, so nothing depends on a single person.

Arrange cover before the Christmas holidays. Agree on who's filling in, which decisions that person can make independently, and when someone should actually be called. Decide in advance what truly counts as urgent, rather than judging it in the moment.

Set the example from the top. A manager who emails during their own holiday quietly tells the rest of the team that this is expected. Agreements about availability only work if leadership follows them too.

Absence prevention starts with the people nobody's keeping an eye on

Managers and key employees in particular often slip under the radar, because everyone assumes they can handle it. That makes absence prevention a matter for the top of the organization too, not just the shop floor.

At Vitsall, our vitality scan maps out which groups or roles within an organization face an increased risk of overload and dropout. This happens at group and role level, not at the level of individual employees, and in line with GDPR. What an employee fills in stays private, and the employer never sees who said what. That gives you insight into where the pressure is building up without putting your people's trust at risk.

Letting go doesn't start with a holiday. It starts with an organization that can stand on its own, even without you, for a while.

Start January with insight instead of sick notes

For many organizations, the holiday season is the last quiet moment before the new year. Those who know now where the pressure is building up can adjust course before January begins. Schedule a no-obligation conversation with us. We'll discuss what absence prevention could look like for your organization and which groups or roles deserve the most attention.