Sabbaticals are a powerful retention tool. Here’s the research to prove it

Formal sabbatical policies are increasingly attractive for employees, but are often misunderstood by companies considering them. Giving employees more than a vacation—months, not days or weeks—provides unexpected benefits to companies: combatting burnout, building culture, encouraging work-life balance, and satisfying younger workers. Addressing burnout takes longer than a weekend/vacation First, a sabbatical provides enough time to truly recover and return to who you are outside your job. Participants in a study I conducted said it took much longer than they’d expected, sometimes up to eight weeks, to feel “human again.” Employee disengagement and burnout persists, despite the many tech-forward offerings promising restoration in microchunks of our days. These trends confirm what my research has shown: There’s no quick fix for unwinding work’s negative effects. More drastic measures are needed. Extended leave also forces employees and their employers to get the work done with remaining resources, rather than have everything pile up in their absence. This frees employees to actually be present during their time off, instead of clearing all the logistical hurdles only to leave one f…