Shyamal Majumdar: The gift of time

THE HUMAN FACTOR

Sabbaticals are no longer a pie-in-the-sky dream for a growing number of employees.

Imagine your boss asking you to go into a 'hibernation' for a while and pursue something you had always wanted to "" it could be a social project, a visit to the Great Barrier Reef, or even plain lazing around at home. In case this seems like a wistful, pie-in-the-sky dream, or just a PR spin by the HR manager, hold on.

This gift of time "" paid or unpaid "" is actually happening in a growing number of companies. Software firm Sasken, for example, has implemented Hibernation, a scheme under which the company allows people who have worked for four years to take a no-strings-attached paid leave for six weeks. This is in addition to all other leave facilities. Apart from helping employees to recharge their batteries, the scheme has resulted in other benefits too. While attrition has come down, Sasken has figured consistently in the lists of great places to work. Almost one-third of new recruits join through internal referral programmes.

Sasken isn't alone. Roughly 11 per cent of large companies worldwide offer paid sabbaticals to employees and another 29 per cent offer unpaid sabbaticals, according to data from the Society for Human Resource Management. Even though paid sabbaticals are typically the province of large companies, 16 per cent of small companies and 21 per cent of mid-size companies offer unpaid sabbaticals. Five years ago, only 15 per cent of all companies offered unpaid sabbaticals.

Adobe was one of the first companies in India to offer a sabbatical programme for employees. Employees, who have completed five years, get three weeks of vacation with pay. For companies like TCS or Wipro, sabbaticals are offered with the understanding that their newly acquired knowledge will add value to the company and to their own roles.

While some companies like IBM, Infosys and Accenture offer sabbaticals ranging from one to two years, other companies provide them only on a case-to-case basis. Satyam Technologies, for example, usually gives sabbatical leave for higher education depending on some parameters such as duration of the leave and how critical the employee is to the organisation.

Companies such as Intel have been offering paid sabbaticals to its US staff since 1981: employees get eight weeks for every seven years of service. Before they go, managers review their daily schedules and long-range projects, deciding what can be postponed and what needs to be reassigned to subordinates, colleagues and the boss.

Goldman Sachs launched what it calls the public service programme in 2004. Under this, Goldman allows its managing directors and vice-presidents/executive directors a year of paid leave to pursue work with a charitable, public service or cultural organisation of their choosing. Only those who have been with the investment bank at least four years are entitled to apply and from that pool a select group is awarded the leave.

Despite the benefits, some management as well as employees are often wary about letting people go on sabbaticals. For these companies, the main concern is how to cover the workload of the absent person and also the continuity that is lost. Besides, the cost of paid sabbaticals can also be quite high.

Employees suffer from what HR experts call the "dispensability factor". Everyone wants to be perceived as indispensable and if normal work goes on even if someone is on a sabbatical, employees feel they will be perceived to be redundant.

But there is a growing section of people who sense that their current career path has run its course and in order to avoid stagnation, they can use a sabbatical to redirect their vocation. Some others are so highly motivated that they are prone to overwork and burn out. For this group, the sabbatical is an opportunity for renewal.

There are many instances of people who didn't have any difficulty to take a break from the rat race and have quietly left their corner offices to take a sabbatical. Take Wal-Mart India chief, Raj Jain. When he was the CEO of Whirlpool India, Jain took a sabbatical as he was moving from the operational aspects of management to the strategic level. The urge to brush up on his theoretical knowledge and to sit back and reflect prompted Jain to take a sabbatical and enrol himself for an Advanced Management Programme at Kelloggs Business School.

Pramath Raj Sinha, who was a partner at McKinsey, took a year-long sabbatical in 2001 to become the Founding Dean of the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad.

The concept of a sabbatical originated more than 2,000 years ago, as evidenced in the Bible. The Old Testament directed the Hebrew people to let their fields lie fallow every seventh (sabbatical) year in order to give the land and its people rest and maintain maximum productivity. It's good that some good traditions continue till date.

shyamal.majumdar@bsmail.in