Before XMas we had some American colleagues over from our US office. As is customary we took them to the pub after work and given the time of year talk inevitably turned to holiday plans. The US guys stated that they received 10 days annual leave per year as compared to the standard 25 received by employees of the same company in the UK. The UK entitlement is on top of the public national holidays (of which there are 8 per year I believe)
The US guys get some sort of healthcare package which I imagine is worth a fair amount.
Employees for the same company in other European branches get even more leave entitlement than the UK staff.
All of this got me wondering about the working practices culture in different countries, the perception of work-life balance in different countries and whether there is any evidenced conclusions about worker productivity in these different worker environments.
Given we US and European members here I thought I'd ask what people's thoughts and experiences are.
Do you US guys look at us Europeans with envy? Do you think we are a bunch of lazy slackers? Do the Europeans think the American way is the way of the workaholic? And aren't we all in the developed Western nations heading down the American path of longer hours, less leave and less employment rights anyway (flexible labour market being the term used here in the UK)