As much as you may want to get ahead at work, continually trying to do more can lead to exhaustion and burnout , not career success.
A 2018 study from Gallup found that employee burnout has reached epidemic levels, with more than two-thirds of workers reporting that they feel burned out at work at least sometimes, if not more frequently. (Nearly a quarter of those polled said they feel burned out “very often” or “always.”)
While one option to recharge might be to take a vacation for a week or two, such a short recovery period may not be enough to really restore your zest for the daily grind. In this case, another idea to explore is whether you might be able to take a sabbatical.
[See: How to Change Careers Successfully.]
What is a sabbatical?
Definitions vary by company, but in general, a sabbatical is an employer-approved period of extended time off from your regular job. Sabbaticals usually last two months or more.
Sabbaticals are common in academia, where they may involve completing a research or writing project away from the demands of a rigorous teaching schedule. Sabbaticals aren’t just for teachers anymore, though, and have become increasingly available in corporate America.
There are several benefits in addition to the opportunity to take a planned pause from your job. First is that your employer guarantees that your position will still be available after you return. Another is that, depending on your employer’s policies, you may be able to collect a full or partial paycheck during your time out of the office. While sabbaticals were traditionally paid (and this is usually still the case for university teachers), unpaid sabbaticals have become increasingly common.
[See: 8 Skills That Set Millennials Apart at Work.]
Can I take a sabbatical?
If you’re interested in potentially taking a sabbatical, the first step is to ask your human resources department whether they offer this as a benefit to employees at your company, and if so, whether sabbaticals are paid or unpaid.
If they are available, you still need to know whether you qualify. In some companies, certain positions or degrees of seniority may be eligible for a sabbatical benefit, while others are ineligible. Your company may require a certain number of years of employment before you qualify.
If you discover that your company doesn’t have a corporate policy in place for sabbaticals, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t ever take one, but it does mean that you’ll need to put in a specific request for one. When you make this request, your goal is to convincingly explain to your boss and/or HR department how you and the company would benefit from you taking prolonged leave.
If you’re a freelancer or otherwise self-employed, while you have the freedom to grant yourself a sabbatical, you’ll need to carefully weigh the pros and cons of any missed income you’d incur by giving yourself such a break.
[Read: The Right Way to Ask for Help at Work.]
Here’s how to ask for a sabbatical.
If you work for an employer, whether they have an official sabbatical program or not, you’ll still need to be savvy about when and how you request one. Just because your employer offers this opportunity as part of its benefits package doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re free to take advantage of this leave whenever you feel like it.
When you’re out of the office for a month or more at a time, it affects your supervisor, colleagues, team and department, so the timing must be right. If your company has sabbaticals available to you, be sure to avoid requesting one right in the middle of your busiest work period or when you have a major deadline to meet. Try to choose a slower time of year or a period after you’ve completed a big project.
If your employer doesn’t have a formal sabbatical program, try using one or more of these strategies to justify your request:
— Emphasize to your boss how, with an extended leave, you would be able to put time into thinking about how to solve an important problem in your company or department.
— Propose taking a sabbatical to complete specific professional training or a relevant course of study, the results of which you could then share with your team or department.
— When making your request, share research on productivity and burnout (such as this study), noting the importance of recharging to maintain maximum productivity.
Instead of overdoing it and running your tank down to “E,” a saner option can be to temporarily pull the plug on your work life before it pulls the plug on you. A sabbatical just might be the perfect way to accomplish this.
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Sabbatical Basics: Everything You Need to Know Before You Ask for Time Off originally appeared on usnews.com
