With Sabbaticals, Businesses Are Taking a Page From College Texts : Management: Leaves of absence let employees unwind, re-energize or do community service. Some firms say they boost productivity, morale.

Sabbaticals are usually associated with the teaching profession, giving faculty members an opportunity to pursue a study interest and still retain at least part of their salary.

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Now some companies are adopting that idea, offering employees of longer tenure a chance to work on a project, get involved in community service or take a break from the hectic pace.

“We are seeing sabbaticals in certain types of companies, particularly where the burnout issue is significant,” said Helen Axel, senior research fellow at the business research group The Conference Board.

Axel said about 10% of large companies now offer some sort of paid leave. Another 15% offer unpaid leaves of absence.

Some of the newer programs include paid leaves of between four and eight weeks available to employees who have been with a company for four to 10 years. Such leaves are frequently recurring, meaning that after a certain number of years the worker is entitled to another.

Other programs allow certain employees time off with or without pay to perform a community service or complete a task deemed beneficial to both the worker and the employer.

Among the companies adopting leaves--in particularly the newer, paid sabbaticals--are those in which turnover is low and where one-on-one relationships with clients are crucial or creativity is a must, Axel said.

Those include law firms, consulting groups and high-technology companies. Those are also among the sectors of the economy where on-the-job pressure is the greatest.

The corporate cost cutting and job layoffs of recent years also have contributed to the rising numbers of companies offering special leaves.

Companies are looking for ways to reward surviving employees; they also recognize that those who remain are doing the same job with fewer people. Sabbaticals help boost productivity and morale, they maintain.

“Companies are saying, ‘Stick with us and in a few years you’ll have this to look forward to,’ ” said Diana Reace, a manager with Hewitt Associates LLC, a consulting group in Lincolnshire, Ill.

Indeed, Genentech Inc., a San Francisco-area biotechnology firm with 2,800 employees, sees its six-week sabbatical every six years as an important tool in retaining and recruiting employees.

“People reach the second half of the six-year period and don’t want to lose the leave,” said Janet Briggs, the company’s director of human resources.

Tandem Computers Inc. of Cupertino offers a recurring six-week sabbatical to all employees after four years of service. Like many in the high-tech industry, Tandem’s policy began in the early 1980s.

“It started because the high-tech industry work flow is very compressed, very rushed at times and it was viewed as a way to let people get away,” said Tom Moser, corporate benefits program manager. “Now it’s a common benefit for companies in this area, and we are competitive in vying for employees.”

Moser and others said many employees view sabbaticals as time to take an extended vacation.

But Michael R. Losey, president of the Washington-based industry group Society for Human Resource Management, said policies granting employees paid leave for travel or just time off were costly and serve companies little purpose.

“Sabbaticals are for amateurs,” Losey said. “If you can be gone for long periods, the company probably doesn’t need you. Universities had them to enrich people, but these are just extended vacations.”

For John James, a manager at Frank Russell Co., a financial services company based in Tacoma, Wash., paid leave gave him some “renewal” after 25 years with the company. His job as a regional director for the investment division means James spends two weeks of every month on the road.

The company this summer started granting employees with 10 years’ service a two-month sabbatical.

James, 51, is spending half his time at a recently finished lake house. The second month will be spent traveling.

“I’m winding down,” James said. “I wake up each morning to tough decisions like whether or not to take a boat ride or a canoe ride and what to eat for breakfast. This is something I started needing about five years ago.”

George Russell, the company’s chairman, said the idea of time off for employees was something he started talking about 10 years ago, when he spent two months trekking in the Himalayas with his wife.

The policy will cost the company between $2 million and $3 million, he said.

“It is important that individuals have an opportunity to look carefully at life,” Russell said. “There will be a few who say, ‘I shouldn’t be working here,’ but they ought to discover that as early as possible. The rest of the people will come back re-energized and with new ideas.”

Sabbaticals were introduced in U.S. universities in the late 19th Century, but the concept did not take hold outside academia until after World War II, according to Fred Best’s book, “Work Sharing: Issues, Policy Options and Prospects.”