More and more employees are taking extended vacations from work. Companies accept to retain their valuable employees
Extended career breaks go by many names and take many forms, from using time between jobs to explore or take an employer-approved vacation to becoming a digital nomad or saving up for a month-long adventure.
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Costs, personal responsibilities and the fear of being judged by colleagues, friends and family members are some of the obstacles that prevent people from ending their working lives and setting off in search of new prospects, according to sabbatical experts and people who have taken sabbaticals.
American attitudes toward leisure are different from those in much of Europe, where leisure and rest are a priority, said Kira Schrabram, an assistant professor of management at the University of Washington's business school who studies meaningful and sustainable work. In the European Union, workers are entitled by law to at least 20 days of paid holiday per year.
Sabbaticals as “a sacred human ritual”
But more and more companies are allowing weeks or months of paid or unpaid leave as a way to retain valuable employees, according to Schrabram. Seven years ago, she brought her burnout research expertise to the Sabbatical Project, an initiative founded by DJ DiDonna, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, that promotes sabbaticals as “a sacred human ritual” which more people should have access to.
Schrabram, DiDonna and University of Notre Dame Professor Emeritus Matt Bloom interviewed 50 American professionals who had taken an extended break from non-academic jobs. Based on the responses, they identified three types of sabbaticals: working vacations that involved pursuing a passion project; “free diving” which combined interesting adventures with periods of rest; and adventures undertaken by exhausted individuals who embarked on life-changing explorations once they had sufficiently recovered.
Self-funded breaks
More than half of the subjects interviewed financed their breaks themselves. In an article for the Harvard Business Review, researchers advocated for sabbaticals as a tool employers could use to recruit, retain and promote talented workers. But since extended paid holidays are not common, “we really reject the idea that a sabbatical has to be sponsored by an employer”, Schrabram said of the Sabbatical Project, which has created a network of instructors and mentors to encourage people curious about sabbaticals.
