Anton Savage: Employers should embrace the sabbatical, just not the Andy Farrell kind
Breaks where staff do actually take a break, as opposed to just going off to work for someone else, can be a great thing for workers and bosses alike
Originally published in the Business Post.
Andy Farrell’s departure for the Lions is being characterised as a ‘sabbatical’. I’m not sure it quite fits the description when he’s actually just doing his day job for someone else. If you’re a boiler fitter for Bord Gáis, I’m sure they might take it askance if you disappeared for several months to go do installations as a solo trader.
But setting aside that Farrell is off to work for someone else rather than going to discover his inner child in a yurt in Mexico, the sabbatical is a great thing.
Paul O’Connell maintains that in Farrell’s case it will be great for the coaches, because they’ll have to step up to fill a gap, and great for the players because it will mix things up. If he’s right, it will be great for everyone except Andy Farrell.
There used to be a phrase in broadcasting: “It’s a brave man who takes his holidays.” The presenter who took time off risked their short-term replacement being someone better, or more popular (or cheaper). And cheap, popular short-term replacements have a tendency to become permanent.
If holidays are risky, sabbaticals are lethal – long-term client relationships get migrated to other colleagues, management structures change, new power dynamics develop and the departed sabbaticaller can return to find themselves living proof of the cliché that no-one is irreplaceable.
To overcome the natural resistance to extended time off begotten by self-preservation, a number of companies now operate forced sabbaticals – senior executives are told that at some point in the next few years they are required to take some months off, disconnect from the office and disappear.
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