Getting away from it
Article Date: Mar 31 2006
Allowing your employees to disappear off and do their own thing for months on end hardly seems like a sound business decision. Yet, a growing number of firms are allowing members of staff to take sabbaticals – some are positively evangelical about the benefits it brings to the business.
Law firm Eversheds, for instance, introduced a scheme three years ago, allowing workers to take time out for up to five years and, says HR director Anna Patra, ‘I think it’s been a massive business benefit to us.
‘We have a lot of people who join us, work their way through the organisation and then decide they’d like to go away and do something else, whether that be to travel or work on some sort of voluntary project,’ she explains. ‘And what you find is that people return refreshed.’
There are, according to Patra, other benefits too. ‘When people go travelling or volunteering they have to become extremely self-sufficient,’ she suggests. ‘Career breaks can give workers a whole host of new skills,’ concurs Neera Dhingra of VSO, a charity currently managing around 1,500 volunteers working on projects in developing countries. ‘It grants them a familiarity of working in different cultures and having to achieve things with limited resources and in challenging situations.
‘Offering your staff a career break can act as a really useful recruitment and retention tool as well,’ Dhingra adds. ‘For graduates in particular it can be very appealing, but it’s also extremely useful for individuals that are jaded, who you’d like to retain and only need a chance to refresh themselves.’
Not required in law
From an employer’s point of view, there are, of course, no legal obligations to offer sabbaticals or career breaks to staff. This means that opportunities are offered at your own discretion and that it is also down to the employer and the employee to thrash out details relating to how long any break will be, whether an individual will remain on the payroll and the terms under which an individual will return to work.
Eversheds, for example, offers the scheme to any employee who has been with the group for two years. ‘We don’t ask people what they plan to do, but we do ask them fill in an application form. This requires them to highlight the business benefits to us of them going, and to interpret the likely effects on both their team and their clients – that’s the only bit of bureaucracy we impose,’ comments Patra. ‘We give them a document before they leave as well and this explains what will happen to their salary and benefits. Obviously, they don’t get paid while they’re away, but they come back to the same job, at least the same salary and the same benefits package as when they left.’
Realistic for small firms?
While offering sabbaticals may be easy enough for large firms, is it really feasible for smaller, overstretched companies? Patra thinks so. ‘It is more difficult to offer sabbaticals and career breaks if you’re a smaller business, but it’s not impossible. I think it’s too simplistic if a member of your staff requests it to just say: ‘No, you can’t do that, we’re too small,’ she says. ‘I think you have to ask whether there is a compelling reason for not offering sabbaticals. The benefits we’ve experienced when people return to work [as virtually 100 per cent do] have been enormous, both in terms of productivity and commitment.’
Essentially, it boils down to a simple leap of faith. If you see certain individuals playing a major part in your business’ future and if you sense they are in need an extended break, offering a sabbatical may well prove to be one of the shrewdest moves you ever make.
