If you’re feeling burned out right now, you’re not alone: In a DHR Global survey of corporate professionals, 83% reported some degree of burnout. AI isn’t helping. A sabbatical can make a difference—though it’s still relatively rare for employees to take one.
In a new book out today, Big Time Off: The Transformative Power of Sabbaticals and How to Take One, Harvard Business School lecturer DJ DiDonna makes the case that sabbaticals—extended breaks, ideally lasting several months or a year—should be an essential tool at work. It’s not just a way to keep good employees from quitting; it also has clear benefits for a company.
For example, after an extended break, workers return with more creativity. (That’s one reason why designer Stefan Sagmeister shuts down his design firm every seven years.) It also helps make companies more resilient so they don’t rely too heavily on a particular person.
A growing number of companies now offer sabbaticals, from Adobe to Goldman Sachs, though many others still don’t. Fast Company talked to DiDonna about how to convince your boss to let you take a sabbatical even if it isn’t yet standard practice at your workplace.
Find examples in your industry
First, do a little research to find out whether your company has allowed any sabbaticals unofficially in the past, how management reacted, and how the process worked. Then look for other professionals in your broader network who’ve taken sabbaticals. Try to talk to them to learn how they did it, and how they returned to their jobs afterward. The book also shares several case studies.
“All of this is building up your courage to make the ask,” says DiDonna, who also founded the Sabbatical Project, a nonprofit that works to make extended leave the norm. “What I’ve found is that what typically happens is people don’t have the courage to make the ask—understandably, in some work environments—and then they end up getting to a place where they can’t do it anymore and they quit.”
Tell your boss about the benefits
DiDonna, who partnered with academics to launch the first large study of sabbaticals, outlines multiple benefits to the practice.
On a personal level, they’re often transformative; DiDonna says people sometimes tell him that the experience is as significant as the birth of a child or their wedding day. With enough time off, people have a chance to rediscover themselves. People often take extended trips, spend much more time with family and friends, experiment with new hobbies and interests, and work on creative projects. When they come back to work—and 80% of workers do return to their previous job—they have more energy and focus.
Brighton Jones, an investment advisory firm, requires a three-month paid sabbatical after 10 years of service, and lets workers add on vacation time and unpaid leave. When workers return, the company has found that performance improves. Workers are also more likely to stay long-term. The perk helps the company stand out in recruiting.
DiDonna argues that sabbaticals also help lessen “key person risk,” or reliance on critical employees who could eventually leave for other reasons. By forcing companies to rely on a range of other employees, sabbaticals make a business stronger. The book shares the example of a law firm that lets junior partners lead cases when a senior partner goes on sabbatical, giving younger partners crucial experience that they wouldn’t otherwise get so early in their careers.
Time away also helps employees gain clarity on the parts of their job that are most important to them. When one leader went on sabbatical, he came back to find that operations had improved without him, but fundraising had dropped; he ended up transferring management of operations to the person who’d covered for him and focusing on fundraising.
Workers also come back with more creativity. The book talks about a leader at a poverty nonprofit who went on sabbatical and then returned to completely reshape how the organization was run—focusing on tackling the long-term causes of poverty rather than reacting only to day-to-day needs. A worker for a tech firm called Skylight returned from sabbatical and helped transform the company’s main product.
Make a rough plan
The ideal length of a sabbatical is six months to a year, DiDonna argues. If someone is burned out, it can take a couple of months just to recover. Unlike a vacation, a sabbatical requires complete disconnection—you’re not checking emails, and you’re gone so long that the company has to put systems in place to replace you.
That’s critical to getting the most benefit from the time off. “The company has to figure out how to get the work done without you there,” DiDonna says. “If that’s not the case, it’s like while you’re on vacation—there’s a little part of you that knows in the back of your head that work is piling up and you’re not doing it.”
Plan as far in advance as you can. There might be a logical time to take a break, such as just after a project has been completed. Take an inventory of what you do and who might be able to cover it.
Of course, this can add stress for coworkers. That’s why the best move is to convince your company to offer sabbaticals broadly, not just in one-off cases. DiDonna contrasts it with parental leave, which has become standard—but not everyone plans to have children, and they might feel inequity when they’re covering for someone else’s leave.
With a sabbatical policy that applies to everyone, “they’re doing it knowing that they’re carrying water for someone else for a bit, but that’s going to be paid back to them,” he says. “So it doesn’t breed resentment. . . . I think at its best, the sabbatical creates a shared culture [where we acknowledge] we are people outside of work.”
The next step
The companies that go furthest now offer paid sabbaticals, making them accessible to everyone, not just those with enough extra savings to cover an extended break. Others offer unpaid leave but still cover health insurance and guarantee that the person’s job will be there for them when they come back.
DiDonna argues that companies could take another step and offer new employees “pre-baticals,” or time off before they start, to give them a chance to reset and be in the best position to succeed.
“Employers think that when you hire a new employee, they come in and they have a bunch of vigor and excitement,” he says. “But sometimes those employees are just going from company to company. You have a little bit of adrenaline, but you haven’t solved the underlying problem. You’re just kind of swapping out one company for another.”
