Breaks are good for business

By SELWYN PARKER

Burned out? Take a sabbatical and rejuvenate your corporate self.

That's exactly what Heather Kean, one of the principals of Auckland recruitment consultants Pohlen Kean, did.

And her verdict is 100 per cent positive: "You come back so refreshed. The break was so good for the business."

Strictly speaking, Kean's break was not so much a sabbatical as parental leave while she had her second baby, but the principle still holds.

Kean had four months off while partner Nicola Pohlen took over the nuts and bolts of running their five year-old business.

The 39-year-old did not travel to exotic climes and, apart from a week or two at a bach at Rotorua, stayed at home in Ponsonby with husband Zane, the new baby, and steadily shed the minutiae of the business.

"I lifted myself out of all the operational, day-to-day stuff. I stopped thinking about the business all the time and got back to the big picture," Kean recalls. "Now that I'm back, I'm more aware of the importance of not losing the big picture."

Sabbaticals started in universities where in the good old days senior academic staff typically went off to study every seven years. At least in theory, the concept has spread into commercial life, especially in law and accounting.

In Auckland-based accountancy firm Staples Rodway, partners are entitled to six weeks of sabbatical every 10 years, but they hardly ever use it.

"We're all too busy, "explains managing partner Peter Guise. "I've only known one partner who has taken his sabbatical." In fact, the partners hardly ever get to take their full holidays. It's apparently the same in American professional firms.

But if you can get it, an extended absence from the coal face does wonders for the mind and soul.

"Most people find they simply don't have the time to do the things that are really important to them within the traditional corporate structure," says Carol Sladek of Hewitt Associates, an American human resources consultancy.

"They want to take extended time off to travel, participate in a social-service project or simply relax, and two weeks' vacation a year just isn't enough."

With three to five weeks holiday a year, New Zealand is different from the United States where, incidentally, there's a strong lobby for more than two weeks holiday.

But even three to five weeks doesn't make a sabbatical which amounts to a personal journey.

"The best sabbaticals lead you to long-overdue adjustments in your life," notes writer Pamela Margoshes.

Hard-charging, type-A entrepreneurs are particularly vulnerable to these adjustments.

The literature on the subject, such as Lisa Rogak's Time Off From Work, is full of founder-owners who have worked around the clock for years to build successful businesses but, worn out, decided to lock their offices, hand over the business to long-time associates, and hitchike through Europe, stay at home with the family or teach commercial skills in the ghettos.

Of course, the company has to keep going while the boss is away.

When Kean took her first parental leave, the business was young and she fretted constantly.

"It was one of the most stressful times of my life, "she recalls. "But we've got so many good people here now that I can go away and barely create a ripple.'

Kean dropped in every fortnight for strategy meetings, which she found reassuring. "That made me feel connected but it was only by a thin wire."

But, if you aren't the boss, what will the boss say when you announce plans to go and find your soul? It all depends on what sort of system, if any, the firm has for corporate sabbaticals.

In practice, few New Zealand corporates offer formal sabbaticals, apart from the professional firms. Even in the United States, where corporate sabbaticals began when unions forced 13-weeks of paid leave in the steel and aluminium industries, only some 20 per cent of companies offer them.

A big problem is that somebody else has to do the work and, if even only 5 per cent of the staff are away, the load adds up.

This is fine if those who have shouldered the burden of the absentees are also on the programme but it creates resentment if they're not. This is why spontaneous sabbaticals - for instance for an individual who has done particularly well - are fraught with risks.

Also, many companies just can't spare the staff. Apple Computer dropped its sabbatical deal - six weeks of paid leave after five years of employment - because the boss wanted all hands to the pump.

There are other fish hooks with extended leave. Employees, the ungrateful wretches, have been known to use the time to find a better job on full pay.

Others have returned only to announce they have decided to pursue a career in rock music and handed in their notice, effective immediately. And some well-meaning programmes were dropped when employees treated them like unused holidays and tried to cash them in.

It's problems such as these that lead to the creation of a sort of poor man's sabbatical of extended voluntary leave, paid or unpaid. In the United States, Du Pont, McDonald's and Nike among others give employees extra time off, ranging from a week or two to several months, after a specified period of service.

There are numerous variations on the theme. A St Louis company, Ralston Purina, puts five paid days a year into a "sabbatical bank" for each of its 22,000 employees.

The sabbatical comes without conditions. "They can trek through Nepal, take a karate class, or do community work," says vice-president of compensation and benefits, Ron Sheban.

Others offer "vacation bonuses" - in effect, a sabbatical - and other incentives to staff who stay long enough to earn them.

But what does the company get out of it all? Although the returns are hard to quantify, the company in theory gets more loyal and productive staff once they return, refreshed, to the fold.