Turn off phone on holiday: unionist

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Listen out for the sound of waves crashing on the shoreline and birdsong in the trees - not the ringtone of your company phone.

That's the advice of the head of New Zealand's largest union. Andrew Little, secretary of the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union, said bosses should be telling their staff to turn their phones and other mobile devices off during their summer break.

The line between playtime and worktime is blurring with the increasing availability of communication devices such as laptops, smartphones and now the Apple iPad, which went on sale in New Zealand in July.

Mr Little said people needed to have a real summer holiday break and bosses should make that clear.

"By having staff accessible for hours of work, in converse the obligation should be to tell them that when they are on holiday, they should turn their phones off and they are not obliged to be at the end of it," he said.

Bridget Beattie, general manager of the human resources consultancy Right Management, said the email function on devices such as the Black Berry could be turned off. She said her personal view was that people should turn their phones off during the holidays.

"Unless you have a specific arrangement with a client, don't respond," Ms Beattie said. "It is important that people feel that they can turn it off."

Ms Beattie said there were exceptions to that rule and some roles required people to keep phones on.

Research carried out in the US showed that 59 per cent of working adults checked their work email while on holiday. The survey, carried out for the Xobni software company, interviewed 2179 people over the age of 18 in November.

According to Xobni, 41 per cent of the people who admitted checking work email said they felt either "annoyed, frustrated or resentful" after reading the messages.