Sabbatical Leave 101: Why and How to Offer This Unique Employee Benefit

In a competitive job market, attracting and keeping talent is tough. As an employer, it is your job to keep your employees happy and know how to bring new talent to your workforce. Considering the competition you may face in the hiring world, you must provide unique offerings to your workers. 

While paying your employees a decent salary is a good start, there is so much more to consider when it comes to attracting top talent, including your benefits package. What are you offering that other companies are not? While health insurance, PTO, and 401(k)s are a given, what else is there? One creative benefit to consider is sabbatical leave.

Including sabbatical leave in your benefits package for your current and future employees might entice more people to want to work for you – especially since sabbatical programs are rare in most industries. 

What Is Sabbatical Leave?

Sabbatical leave is a nice way to let your employees relax and grow personally. It allows them to take a break from their work responsibilities. 

But what is a sabbatical exactly, and how is it different from a regular vacation? 

On a sabbatical, your employees can travel or study, which helps them gain new experiences and insights that enhance their work and life. Your employees may also choose to do things like volunteer within their community and spend time with family.

While regular vacation leave typically lasts a week or two, a sabbatical can extend up to one year or more, depending on the employee sabbatical program, and is generally reserved for employees who have been at a company over an extended period.  

What to Include in an Employee Sabbatical Program

When creating a sabbatical program for your employees, first determine what the eligibility criteria should be. You don’t want to offer it to all employees from the start – there needs to be some sort of stipulation here. For example, Adobe has sabbatical programs for employees who have been with their company for at least five years.

You’ll also need to think about the type of leave you want to include in your employee sabbatical program. Do you want to give your employees a full sabbatical with benefits and salary? Or, perhaps you’d rather offer a partial sabbatical with a halved salary. There is always the unpaid option, but that would not be in the best interest of your employees. 

The next step would be to figure out how long a sabbatical should be. Many companies, including Adobe, offer a minimum of four weeks to those who have been employed with them for five years. This limit increases by one week every five years of employment – five weeks after 10 years of service and six weeks after 15 years of employment.

Finally, consider what your sabbatical leave program will cover – family time, travel, volunteer work, study, etc.

Eligibility, time, and coverage cover the bases of your sabbatical leave program. But, you must decide who handles the responsibilities of employees on sabbatical and include that information in your sabbatical leave program. Make sure that you are transparent and have detailed everything to ensure there are no misunderstandings.

Companies Offering Sabbatical Leave Programs

Looking for inspiration about what to include in your sabbatical leave programs? Take a note from these well-known companies: 

• Adobe offers four weeks (20 business days) of sabbatical leave after five years of employment, five sabbatical weeks (25 business days) after 10 years of employment, and six sabbatical weeks (30 business days) after 15 years of employment and every five years thereafter.
   
• Intel awards four sabbatical weeks on the fourth work anniversary and eight weeks off on the seventh work anniversary.
   
• McDonald’s offers eight weeks of no-questions-asked sabbatical after 10 years of employment.
   
• PayPal offers four sabbatical weeks after five years of employment.
   
• Instacart offers a sabbatical leave plan titled “Four Year Fill-Up,” encouraging its employees to take four weeks off once they reach their fourth anniversary with the company.
   
• AARP offers four weeks of paid sabbatical for every seven years employees have been with the company.

Benefits of Sabbatical Leave

Your benefits package says a lot about your company. Just by offering the right benefits, you can show your employees that you care about them, are dedicated to their development, and are committed to diversity efforts.

Including sabbatical leave in your benefits package is a great way to prove your dedication and commitment to creating a happy, inclusive work environment. Plus, there are many other great benefits to offering sabbatical leave. 

For employees, these benefits include: 

• Finding time to commit to a new hobby
• Being able to recover from burnout and stress 
• Improving well-being and health, both mental and physical 
• Spending more time than usual with loved ones 
• Finding time to travel and gain new experiences
• Having the chance to volunteer in the community and bond with neighbors 
   

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But, there are benefits for employers, too: 

• Keeping employees happy and comfortable, thus improving job retention 
• Building a better company reputation – one that values and cares for its employees
• Remaining competitive against other companies, thus attracting talent that may have gone elsewhere
• Maintaining a culture of respect, trust, and mindfulness 
• Keeping morale and productivity high by offering employees a chance to refresh and reenergize

When you weigh the benefits of offering a sabbatical program to your employees, you can see that there is a lot that both you and your workers can benefit from.

Attract and Retain Talent With Your Benefits Package

If you are looking to attract new talent or simply worried about losing your current employees due to life stressors or unhappiness, it is time to consider implementing a sabbatical leave program into your benefits package. Going that extra mile will show your employees that you care about their well-being and satisfaction.

Check out more employer resources at iHire to find out how you can make a safe, happy, and inclusive working environment for all your current and future employees.