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Tired of the same old job? Take a sabbatical, firms say

Employees say they return to work feeling recharged, refocused

The Business Journal of Milwaukee - June 23, 2006 by Brooke Knudson

When John Lill took four weeks off of work from his position as marketing manager with Quad/Graphics Inc. in Sussex, it wasn't for a typical vacation.

Lill was on a fully-paid sabbatical leave, a benefit many businesses are beginning to offer to retain talented employees.

"I feel that after 25 years an employee can become jaded in what they're doing," he said.

Lill, who spent his one-month leave exploring Italy with his family in September 2005, came back "refreshed and recharged with a new outlook."

Quad/Graphics began offering a sabbatical program in 1999 as a way to revitalize the company's employees and give them a chance to reflect on their career path at the company.

Quad is a privately held commercial printer employing 12,000 people worldwide -- 7,500 in Wisconsin. To date, 70 people have taken sabbatical leaves, 11 of them within the past year, said Claire Ho, marketing communications manager with the company.

Employees who work for the company for 25 years or more are eligible for a four-week, fully-paid sabbatical leave with benefits, Ho said.

Can prevent burnout
Typically, sabbaticals are a benefit some companies offer to prevent employee burnout. Some companies define the sabbatical period as time for employees to do volunteer work or pursue job training. Quad/Graphics has no such restrictions.

While sabbaticals have long been used in academia by faculty looking to freshen up on their area of expertise, the concept has not taken hold in the private sector until the past decade.

"Sabbaticals are becoming more and more common in forward-thinking companies," said Bonni Yordi, director of business research at MRA - The Management Association in Waukesha.

"The costs of replacing an employee are generally much higher than paid sabbatical costs," Yordi said.

Avoids turnover costs

The cost of employee turnover can be steep, generally four to seven times the cost of the salaried employee's earnings, Yordi said. Replacement costs include recruiting, advertising, interviewing, training and lost productivity while the position is vacant.

But sabbaticals are not a one-size fits all approach, said Frank Scanlan, spokesperson for the Society for Human Resource Management in Alexandria, Va.

About 23 percent of U.S. businesses offer either paid or unpaid sabbaticals, with unpaid being more common according to a 2005 national survey from the Society for Human Resource Management. In the same report, 9 percent of the companies surveyed employed 500 or more people.

A business has to consider several criteria when developing a sabbatical program, including the duration of the leave, who is eligible, the frequency, whether it's paid or unpaid and whether they will offer full, partial, or no benefits during the leave, Scanlan said.

The parameters of the program are determined by each organization since no national standards exist.

"If well thought out and the policy is solid, sabbaticals don't have to be risky. They can be a great retention tool," Scanlan said.

Companies that offer sabbaticals do risk losing employees who might spend the leave looking for new employment or straining employees who take on additional work responsibilities during an employee's sabbatical.

However, many employers view the programs as a good return on investment even though there is no hard-dollar profit.

"Sabbaticals are one way the company retains talented people by giving them a chance to refresh and recharge. We end up winning, too," said Petrell Ozbay, a spokesperson for SC Johnson of Racine.

SC Johnson's eligibility criteria for a sabbatical leave is based on a sliding scale. At five years of service, employees can take an eight-week leave. Employees who have been with the company for 10 years can take a 12-week sabbatical and then every five years thereafter. Both plans offer employees 25 percent of their pay and full benefits during the absence.

The program, initiated in 2001, fits with SC Johnson's work-life benefit model that promotes flexibility in work schedules. More than 70 employees have taken the sabbatical leave to date. SC Johnson manufactures household cleaning products and products for home storage.

Time to think
Clear thinking and creative employees who return from a sabbatical give companies a competitive edge over those that don't offer the benefit, said Colleen Fitzgerald, owner of Coaching Creates, a leadership and life coaching business in Milwaukee.

Fitzgerald spent six years as executive director of Milwaukee's Pearls for Teen Girls, a nonprofit youth leadership program for at-risk girls, before she took a three-month, unpaid sabbatical leave in 2005. During that time, she started a marketing plan for her consulting firm.

In many ways, Fitzgerald said, it was risky to take a leave with the start of her new business. In the first month of her sabbatical, Fitzgerald traveled to New Mexico where she spent time reflecting, writing and hiking.

For many people who juggle complex and demanding work with family schedules, time becomes more valuable than money, Fitzgerald said.

After Lill of Quad/Graphics delegated work to his colleagues, there was no pile of e-mail or voice mail to respond to on his return.

"Taking the sabbatical was easier than going on a two-week vacation," he said.

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