By the end of October, David, who works at a roughly 2,000-person finance firm in New York, already knew he’d be working during the holiday season this year. Usually at the office, he learned he’d at least get to work remotely between December 26 and January 1—with the way the financial calendar fell, it was inevitable that he couldn’t just disappear for clients (like institutional investors and family offices) during that time.
He says the schedule doesn’t really bother him.
“I’m not in a trench in the middle of a battlefield here. I’m not laying bricks,” he says. “It’s not terribly unrealistic work that they’re asking us to do.” Mainly, he’s expected to respond to emails and move forward client processes already in the works.
David (who, like other employees Fast Company spoke with, is using his first name only to avoid professional repercussions) is one of many office workers who stay on the clock during winter holidays.
Per a 2023 CalendarLabs survey of more than 1,000 full-time U.S. employees, 24% reported planning to work on Christmas Eve, 12% on Christmas Day, and 27% on New Year’s Eve. Exclusive data from 2024 and 2025 shared with Fast Company by Stanford University economics professor Nicholas Bloom show that these figures tend to be higher for remote workers, 13.3% of whom work on Christmas Day compared to just 1.9% of those who work in person, while nearly 39% of remote employees work the day after Christmas, versus 16% who work in-office.
Many employers don’t explicitly require office workers to clock in during this Christmas through New Year’s period, at least not in a typical 9-to-5 fashion. But a few main factors drive people to do it anyway: They have time-sensitive tasks, their higher-ups continue to work so they feel the need to mirror that behavior, and, during this precarious economic time, they fear not showing up could lead to a layoff.
“The pattern I see in organizations is consistent,” says Gleb Tsipursky, CEO of the future-of-work consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts. “Coverage needs do not stop, and many knowledge workers stay online in some capacity because of deadlines, client expectations, end-of-year close—or simply because they feel they will fall behind if they disconnect.”
