Taking a Sabbatical
As we’ve written about over the past couple of years, the pandemic accelerated workplace changes and brought about entirely new changes. Many people joined the great resignation, and some changed to a freelance path. Others have quietly quit, while others continue on their current path but are burnt out or stalled in their career path. One idea that has picked up steam recently is not new, but also not common, taking a sabbatical.
A sabbatical allows you to step away from work for an extended period of time to provide you with a break from your day-to-day work. According to Corporate Finance Institute, “a team of researchers from the United States, Israel, and New Zealand, found out that sabbatical leaves help decrease stress, encourage well-being (especially of the mind), and provide a welcome opportunity to acquire new skills and knowledge. Corporate leaders who are aligned to the idea of providing sabbaticals believe that there is a good return on investment in doing so.”
According to a recent HBR article, more and more companies are offering sabbaticals, and in some cases, employees are taking sabbaticals without pay. According to the study referenced by HBR, people who took a sabbatical (paid or unpaid) found positive improvements in their personal and professional lives. They found three categories of sabbaticals:
Working holidays
This category of sabbaticals encompasses people who left to work on a passion project. Examples listed include founding a start-up or working on a personal project like a novel, or volunteering for a think tank. One outcome for this group was reconnecting with their inner voice and building confidence in their decision-making. Interestingly, the majority of this group returned to their former job with a new confidence and sense of independence.
Free dives
This group of people were lured to a sabbatical through wanderlust. The idea that you only live once motivated them to pursue a new adventure. This group was inspired by intense exploration, such as sailing, trekking, and backpacking in beautiful remote places such as Nepal, Patagonia, and the South Pacific.
Taking on such expeditions is not without risk and, once completed, requires some downtime to recover. Some of these people were driven by challenging themselves or shedding the expectations others had of them. According to one person in this group, “the idea of success and failure and self-worth, all of those things I have historically linked to my job, my job title.”
This group often returned to their profession, but not necessarily the same work. They looked for new opportunities, roles, companies, and situations that better matched their values.
Quests
The final category of people is those who were burned out and felt they had no other option but to take a break. This group worked in toxic work cultures, faced unsustainable expectations, or simply was overloaded in a do-more-with-less organization.
The article states, “Quests started slow, with extended time to heal: sleeping in, eating healthier, and reconnecting with family or friends. As people felt better, they grew excited to make more of their sabbaticals. Like free divers, they ventured out — climbing, diving, and meditating around the world — pushing their personal limits to discover themselves.”
For this group, their sabbaticals took on an even deeper meaning. With new perspectives, they continued to work on their new interests. Not surprisingly, most of this group decided not to return to their previous role. This group illustrated that “when sabbaticals serendipitously unfold from recovery to exploration to putting that learning into practice, they “lead you to a really radical new self.””
Whether you’re an executive thinking of offering sabbaticals to your organization or an employee who feels like now is the time to take a break and rediscover what you want to do, you have to create the right sabbatical scenario that works for you. The article provides a framework for discovering the best approach for your employees or yourself.
If you have questions on implementing sabbaticals or other employee-first initiatives as part of your company’s culture, send us a note.