Canadians are a hardy lot. They play hard, especially a rock 'em sock 'em brand of hockey, which they claim is their national sport. Canadians also work hard to the point where they don't take advantage of their vacation dates.

But according to a recent survey unveiled by travel company Skyscanner, many workers don't take that time off by choice, but are often pressured by their superiors to work instead.

3 Epidemic Proportions

It's a trend called vacation shaming, and is reaching epidemic proportions across the entire workforce in Canada. According to Skyscanner, half of those surveyed reveal that they become targets of vacation shaming, a guilt tactic bosses use to prevent employees from taking off the time to which they're entitled.

Those stressed out the most over vacation shaming were millennials, with 33 percent of them admitting being fearful of asking for time off. Other demographics like Gen-X (17 percent) workers and baby boomers (12 percent) didn't experience that same trepidation.

2 Giant Workload

The survey reveals that 38 percent of vacation shaming takes place when employees ask their bosses for time off. Those levels tend to drop to 27 percent mere days before employees are slated to begin their holidays, and 22 percent on a staffer's last day at work.

While the probability of vacation shaming accounted for 50 percent of the reason why employees don't take time off, 22 percent of respondents said they were far too busy, with 17 percent claiming that a holiday was not affordable, while eight percent stated they didn't want to face a giant workload once their time off ended.

1 Inflicting Guilt

American results from similar studies are slightly lower at 48 percent, but they've leaped in the last two years, with one 2017 study indicating that the trend was as low as 41 percent in 2018. They also discovered that managers and supervisors weren't the only ones inflicting guilt on workers to eschew their holiday time. Employees who didn't take their full vacation dates also engaged in the practice of chastising their colleagues.

But in Canada, where its winter temperatures could drop as low as -40 degrees Fahrenheit, that's reason enough for employees to take a break from those frigid conditions and at least consider a getaway to more tolerable conditions elsewhere. Whatever heat arises from office tension over vacation shaming wouldn't make the office climate any warmer.