TORONTO – It appears a majority of working Canadians don’t mind handling work-related matters on their own time – except during vacations, according an online survey published Thursday.

The Randstad human resources advisory firm says 59 per cent of the adult Canadian employees surveyed in April and May said they didn’t mind handling work-related matters on their own time.

That number dropped to 40 per cent when it came to vacations, although Randstad says there was a big difference between the sexes – with men much more likely than women to say they choose to do work during their holidays.

It says 60 per cent of the men surveyed said they felt pressured by a boss to be available by email or phone while on vacation, compared with 45 per cent of the women surveyed.

Randstad says employers and employees should recognize the importance of ensuring people have a chance to rest – or risk exhaustion.

Randstad Canada’s Faith Tull says employers have a responsibility to help employees strike the right balance, which she says is essential to keeping them motivated and ready for new challenges.

`”We need to encourage them to disconnect completely from time to time, and be careful as managers not to blur the lines between home and work,” Tull says.

Randstad says its survey is conducted four times a year in 33 countries, with at least 400 interviews per country it covers. Respondents are aged 18 to 65 and work at least 24 hours per week in a paid job, excluding self-employed people.

The polling industry’s professional body, the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error as they are not a random sample and therefore are not necessarily representative of the whole population.