Accountants and sabbaticals

The success of companies recruiting the best talent can often be measured against which ones offer the best benefits packages. And allowing employees the option of taking a year's career break is proving a particular case in point, reports Faith Glasgow

Sabbaticals used to be one of the perks of an academic career - up to a year's paid freedom from lectures and tutorials to get on (or not) with one's own research. But the benefits of providing employees with time out to pursue personal interests have also been recognised within the wider business world - particularly with the emergence, over the past decade or so, of a more accommodating, flexible approach to employees' work and personal time.

It is a selling point in recruitment terms for companies to be able to offer their staff the chance to take a career break to travel the world, write a novel, do volunteer work, or simply bridge an awkward gap in domestic arrangements, without risk to their job security or threat to career prospects (though typically, unlike an academic sabbatical, such a break is unpaid).

And employees seize such opportunities with both hands. Paul Stout at Deloitte & Touche's Liverpool office, for example, took five months out to travel through South America, Australasia and Thailand for his honeymoon. 'I benefited from the experience in a number of ways, both personally and from a work perspective,' he comments.

'We experienced a wide range of different cultures, different people, working and travelling with people from different countries who speak different languages, and had to cope with some tough situations, problems and environments. It was great for our relationship; and on top of all this, I came back to a promotion from manager to senior manager. But returning was a challenge for the first few months - it was hard to get back into the work mentality.'

Clearly, the prospect of such a sabbatical presents a world of opportunities to those lucky enough to be heading off. But their employers have to bridge the gap, deal with clients and get through the workload one way or another (for instance, by using interim staff or seconding staff from other departments). So how do the benefits stack up for financial firms and big businesses?

It appears that sabbaticals are now a reasonably commonplace element of many benefit packages - and particularly for accountants and finance professionals. An independent survey of employees for Direct Line Travel Insurance in April last year found that around a quarter of respondents work for a company where sabbaticals are a staff perk - but that among those in the public sector, finance and insurance industries, that proportion rises to 40%, followed by IT and telecoms at 36%.

A key consideration is that 'fringe' benefits such as the chance for career breaks can help companies both to recruit and - equally importantly - to hold on to high quality employees. That is particularly significant where skilled staff are in short supply - as is currently the case with accountants and finance professionals. Financial recruitment consultancy ECHM's salary survey for 2007 shows that its corporate clients are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit talented individuals in financial roles, in what has become a highly competitive market.

'As the war for finance talent shows no signs of abating, companies are looking beyond basic salary to more innovative and proactive methods of attracting the very best people,' comments Kirsten MacLeod, operations director at ECHM. 'The move by a number of accountancy firms to improve their brand reputation and raise their work-life balance credentials is particularly interesting: clearly, salary increases in isolation are not enough to secure key finance hires in a competitive marketplace.'

However, sabbaticals comprise only a part of the enhanced packages being offered. As Lorraine Twist, managing consultant of ECHM's public practice division, comments: 'The majority of practice firms do include sabbaticals as part of their employee offering but, as far as I am aware, it is not an element that is being heavily promoted over and above other benefits to attract key talent at present.'

A similar message, focusing on the growing need to accommodate employees' needs generally, comes from the major accountancy firms. At Deloitte & Touche, HR director Stevan Rolls stresses that youthful new recruits don't necessarily talk about flexibility and career breaks at their interviews: 'It's all about salary and commitment to the firm at that stage.' But these factors become more important later. Having attracted high quality employees in the first place, the company is very keen to retain them, and the key to doing so is a flexible attitude to their needs. Richard Jordan of Ernst & Young agrees. 'It amounts to a more grown-up approach to managing work,' he comments.

Policies come in various shapes and sizes. Ernst & Young operates two options, both unpaid - a short-term break of up to 26 weeks off, and a longer-term extension of up to two years, under which employees effectively resign from the firm with their pension arrangements on hold. When they return, their employment continues as though it had been unbroken. Deloitte allows breaks of up to a year after three years' service; partners must serve for 10 years before they can take a three-month break.

Other large organisations offer similar opportunities. At British Telecom, for instance, staff can take up to four breaks, totalling two years off work, in the course of their career - provided there is at least two years between each jaunt, and the line manager is happy with the arrangements.

But by no means do all firms have a set policy on sabbaticals - Grant Thornton, for example, says that career breaks are 'down to the individual'. Moreover, as the Direct Line survey mentioned earlier indicates, some sectors are much less likely to bother with such potentially troublesome perks at all. At professional recruitment consultant Robert Walters, the director of the Midlands office, Steve Randall, observes: 'Sabbaticals are not really a hot topic around here. They are not common practice in the industries we deal with, and not something that's commonly an issue for companies.'

Smaller companies are, of course, less well placed to cope with the absence of a key member of staff, though some progressive firms try to accommodate their employees' requests if possible. The drinks manufacturer Innocent is one example. 'Over the years a few people have taken extended leave, or sabbaticals,' says an Innocent spokesperson. 'Obviously it depends on how the team is structured, and when the leave is taken, as to whether this is feasible. There is currently no official policy on this. It's done on a case by case basis.'

In general, where sabbaticals are available, the emphasis is on dialogue: if you want time off to sail round the world, and you have been with the firm long enough to qualify for the perk, just ask - but give plenty of notice of your plans, and don't announce your intentions of disappearing just before the tax year ends or in the depths of the summer holidays.

Faith Glasgow is a freelance journalist, writing mainly on property and finance. She has contributed to a wide range of publications, including most of the UK broadsheets, Vogue, Country Life and Investors Chronicle.