Time out
Many companies are exploring an increasingly attractive benefit for employees: paid and unpaid sabbaticals
Still, paid leaves like those offered at Intel and Xerox are the exception. The vast majority of sabbatical programs are unpaid. But they still offer important flexibility to valued employees. For instance, when Kathleen Cooper of Minneapolis, then a special projects manager at Deloitte & Touche USA, discovered she was pregnant last year, she felt torn between job and family. Now she can have it both ways, thanks to Deloitte's new Personal Pursuits initiative. Launched in June, the program allows Deloitte employees to take up to five years off unpaid, then return to the same or a new job. "This made my decision easy," says Cooper, who started her three-year leave in November.
During her time off, Deloitte will pay for any training, licenses, or professional association memberships Cooper needs to maintain. Meanwhile, she'll meet once a month with an assigned mentor who will update Cooper on office developments. And she'll have the option to take on short-term projects. "Many workers re-entering the work force don't want to just turn the spigot on or off. We're trying to smooth it out," says Cathy Benko, the firm's national managing director for the retention and advancement of women. Benko says the Personal Pursuits program costs $2,500 to $3,000 each year per participant--far cheaper than recruiting and training new talent, which costs at least twice the employee's annual salary.
Though few firms are as progressive as Deloitte with their leave options, many do offer extended leaves of absence, often granted on a case-by-base basis. IBM, for example, offers personal leaves of absence for up to three years for specific reasons including parenting, adoption, caring for aging family members, education relevant to IBM's needs, and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, like training for the Olympics.
In some cases, sabbaticals can benefit the employer even more than the employee. During a serious downturn in 2001, Accenture offered employees six-to-12-month sabbaticals at 20 percent of pay. A staggering 2,000 employees volunteered and, as a result, the company avoided layoffs and gained a renewed workforce to boot. "It was almost like getting brand-new employees," says Keith Hicks, Accenture's U.S. director of human resources. "They had that fire and enthusiasm and motivation back."
Stepping up. Whether employers are offering formal or informal time off, they all hope to hear responses like that of Clifton Corpus of Sacramento, Calif., a technical support agent for Intel. "Before my sabbatical, I wasn't proactive. I just wanted to do a good job," he says. But after his December sabbatical, spent in Hawaii and at home with his 2-year-old son, his outlook changed. "Now I want to take more responsibility in order to advance," says Corpus.
To reap these benefits, though, employers need to create a leave-friendly culture. "Even when companies offer sabbaticals, many employees don't take advantage of it because they're concerned about how they'll be perceived," says World at Work's Stanley. At Intel, there's no stigma because everyone qualifies: Even top executives like Chairman Andy Grove take a break.
When sabbaticals aren't well supported, they can backfire and undermine morale. "I could see some people resented my time off," says Quinlan, who took a five-week sabbatical from her former job as CEO of ad agency NW Ayer. "They felt like, 'Here I'm holding down the fort while you're off finding yourself.' "
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