Workers Loves Sabbaticals, Companies are Less Sure

It is way too early to call this a trend, but apparently some progressive companies are now offering ‘sabbaticals’ to their employees – and finding that t hey are a big hit. You can see the Christian Science Monitor’s article on the subject here.
Sabbaticals have long been the norm in academia, of course. Professors work for however many years, then take off a semester or a year to do research, usually in a different venue. In the rest of the working world, however, sabbaticals have always been a rarity. According to the article, the Society for Human Resource Management says that only 18 percent of firms offer unpaid sabbaticals, and 5 percent give paid ones.
There is an argument that sabbaticals will stay a rarity. After all, for companies who are already having trouble finding enough of the right labor, who needs – goes the argument – people wandering off for months at a time? Thing is, as long as they wander back, it’s probably cheaper to go the sabbatical route than constantly have to recruit and train new staff.
Sabbaticals could be an important pat of the leisure economy – and an important part of bringing in and keeping Gen Ys. It’s not that workers in this generation will not want to work hard, it’s that they will want to work hard and have a life too. Already, we anecdotally know that they are not impressed with the standard 2 weeks off a year that many companies offer to new employees. Some seem to be quitting to take longer vacations – and then don’t come back to the same companies at all.
It’s definitely a carrot companies should consider – work for us now, but take a few months off in a year of two if you want. I don’t expect to see the stats on this change anytime soon – but let’s check in a decade to see whether the sabbatical idea still seems like a radical way to make people come to work.