A corporate plot twist? The real reason Indian employees are taking more paid leaves

There was a time when saying “I’m on leave” meant you were either sipping iced coffee on a beach, binge-watching romcoms in bed, or simply avoiding humanity until your leave ended. But 2025 has brought with it a twist no one saw coming: people are now taking leave so they can finally finish their office work. Yes, welcome to the chaotic new trend of Work From Leave—the most accidentally relatable workplace culture shift India has seen in a while.

The rise of work from leave

The idea is simple: employees officially call in “leave” so they can unofficially work in peace. But the motivation behind it is anything but simple. For many, office hours have turned into a never-ending marathon of interruptions—meetings, reviews, approvals, Slack notifications, tea and smoke breaks, those “quick calls”, and colleagues who treat “one-minute question” like a personality trait.

What’s wild is how common this is becoming. People aren’t using their leave to escape work anymore; they’re using it to finally do their work. The irony is both delicious and exhausting. “I used to work at a really toxic place,” a friend confides in me, explaining how impossible targets and overwhelming workloads pushed people to take extra days just to cope. “Instead of acknowledging the pressure, the management made it seem like we were the problem. After a point, it honestly felt like they were trying to push people out by giving us unachievable goals—and eventually, that’s exactly what happened.”

What this says about Indian work culture

Let’s be honest: the concept of Work From Leave isn’t just another quirky trend. It’s a flashing neon sign pointing straight at India’s hyper-productive, always-online, message-at-11 pm workplace vibe.

Most workplaces still operate on the belief that productivity equals constant activity—meetings, updates, check-ins, circle-backs—everything except actual time to sit down and do the work. So employees end up creating their own quiet pockets of time, even if that means marking themselves “on leave” just to catch a breather from the madness.

A former colleague shared how she wanted to work and was trying to escape the chaos. “All I’m asking for is two peaceful hours without meetings, and I’ll finish my tasks—but that seems too much to ask for at my workplace,” she says. “But no one’s going to accept that excuse when deadlines aren’t met, so I’m forced to use my paid leave to finish my office work.” 

Is this trend smart or unhinged?

Honestly? It’s both. On one hand, taking leave to get work done feels efficient—like a productivity power move. No distractions. No colleagues dropping by with “five-minute favour?” No managers casually assigning tasks at 6 pm. Just uninterrupted, focused time.

But on the other hand, it’s a giant red flag. Using paid time off to complete office work defeats the entire purpose of paid time off. “Taking leave to be productive feels genius, until you realise you’re using your rest day to fix the workday that broke you,” a 31-year-old journalist quips. Paid time off was invented so humans could sleep, breathe, vacation, touch grass, scroll through reels guilt-free, or stare at the ceiling for five hours—not open a 41-page spreadsheet and “quickly fix the deck”.

Lead image: Netflix

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