Sabbaticals in the Private Sector: An Overlooked Tool to Boost Employee Retention and Productivity
Sabbaticals are a famous perk of working in academia, but you rarely hear about them in the private sector. They usually mean about a year off of work, with part or all of that extended leave being paid. In the academic world, they are not pure vacations; instead, the person taking a sabbatical is generally doing it to pursue independent academic work, such as writing a book or research.
People leaders in the private sector have started to champion sabbaticals as a way to avoid burnout, especially for top performers who may be at risk of leaving the organization. The difference is that they are usually not fully paid if they are of a longer duration, and they are treated as more of a vacation. They are also not for long periods, with formal sabbatical policies from larger companies ranging from a month to six months, depending on the situation.
How Sabbaticals are Good for Everyone
Adecco states that burnout may be the next worker pandemic, with four out of ten employees reporting that burnout is one of their greatest concerns. The advantages of sabbaticals for the company include better employee retention rates, higher employee productivity, and attracting top talent.
Studies have shown that longer breaks contribute to a decrease in worker burnout, as well as increased productivity once the person comes back to work. In addition, your star performers tend to be most at risk of burnout, so extended time off for them can do a lot of good for the business.
Many larger companies have a sabbatical policy in place, including HSBC, Adobe, HubSpot, and Hallmark.
The Disadvantages of Sabbaticals
In academia, a professor generally needs a tenure of six years or more to earn a sabbatical. This is also generally true of most companies that offer them - the employee must have been with the firm for at least a few years. Add to that the fact that sabbaticals are usually reserved for top performers, and you’re without a top performer for a significant period of time. However, this is balanced with the fact that you are more likely to retain them once they return.
Compensation is also a deterrent. While some companies are offering unlimited PTO, employees usually don’t take full advantage of it for fear of being looked over for promotions or exciting projects. A 2022 survey conducted by Namely found that staff at companies offering unlimited PTO took 13 days off per year, whereas employees with limited policies took 15 days.
A sabbatical can start at a month and go up from there, so some negotiation with the employee may need to take place in terms of what they find reasonable for compensation. If sabbaticals are meant as perks, they should probably be shorter in duration (one or two months, for example) and be fully paid. If an employee wants to take more time than that, negotiations around compensation are reasonable.
Some businesses may not find sabbaticals feasible. A smaller firm with 15-20 employees, for example, may not be able to spare an employee for an extended period. Sabbaticals are best suited to companies with “busy seasons” where people can easily take time off during traditional downtime, as well as larger companies where it’s easier to get help with the work.
Designing a Work Plan for Sabbaticals
There are a few things to consider if you choose to offer sabbaticals. Make sure there is coverage for staff who are taking extended time off. If multiple employees are eligible for sabbaticals at once, this may be more difficult to do and external resources may be required. Avoid piling on existing staff as this will potentially lead them into burnout territory.
The employee who is taking a sabbatical should ensure that all major projects are complete and handed off on a timeline that just sees them doing regular everyday work for a couple of weeks leading up to their time off. This will give them a reasonable cushion for getting larger projects completed or handed over.
When the employee returns, their job must be protected and they should have a short ramp up period built in to get them back up to speed. This is a great guide to sabbaticals for HR professionals.
Sabbaticals offer many of the holy grails of employee engagement, improved employee retention and higher productivity being two of them. But they are a big tradeoff for the payoff, and only you can decide if it is worth it for your company. Employing an effective employee productivity tool is one way to prove the ROI of employee sabbaticals.
Do you want to be able to monitor an employee’s productivity levels? Prodoscore is an employee productivity monitoring solution that will allow you to gather that data non-invasively. We can help you get all the internal data you need to make decisions about things like sabbaticals without the micromanaging tactics of similar tools.
