Alexis Grant, the US News & World Report career writer addressing the topic, also provided some great tips on negotiating a sabbatical if your company doesn’t have an official sabbatical program for employees. Here’s a brief summary, but you’ll want to read Grant’s entire article for details.

1. Be purposeful. As we’ve often said here at yourSABBATICAL.com, the best sabbaticals are planned ones.
2. Show how your time away will benefit the company. How does one do this? Our toolkit on “Negotiating Your Sabbatical” takes you through the process, step by step.
3. Think carefully about your timing. What time of year will be the easiest time for you to leave your colleagues for a while? When will your time away have the least impact? And how long have you been with your company before you even approach the subject of a sabbatical?
4. Be prepared to quit. Yikes, right? Well….what ARE you going to do if your boss says no to your sabbatical request? Our toolkit lays out your options and how to respond.
5. Play it up on your resume. If you think time away from the job is something you should “hide” on your resume, think again. Instead, leverage your sabbatical on your resume or professional bio.
6. If your boss says no, consider a company that does support career breaks. Drum roll, please….here are more than 100 companies that offer them regularly to employees.
7. It can’t hurt to ask. Actually, it can, if you don’t ask the right way. Your pitch needs to be thoughtful and strategic, and that takes planning and forethought.

1. Use talent mapping. Segment the workforce into separate roles based on their business value and differentiate critical or pivotal talent.
2. Create meaning for the talent brand. To do so, leadership must have a talent presence internally and externally.
3. Cultivate a learning culture. Because talented and successful employees want to keep building their skills.
4. Focus on the supervisors. Employees rely on their immediate supervisor more than any other individual for information, recognition and motivation.
5. Don’t ignore work/life issues. Technology has resulted in the blurring of work and life and employers must help employees find the right balance.

So how does a sabbatical strategy fit into all of this? Programs that allow for structured time away from a job, if properly designed, promote intentional reflective and strategic, innovative thinking – powerful contributors to organizational success. And stories about individual sabbatical experiences inspire and strengthen an employer’s talent brand.

Check out these employers of choice who have figured all of this out and are successful branding themselves as talent magnets.

The Los Vados house, where I'm staying next week.

Sometimes the only way to disconnect for a few days is to choose a location that offers no other choice.

I’m leaving tomorrow morning for Moab, Utah. I’ll fly into Grand Junction, Colorado, and then drive a rental car a couple of hours to Moab, where I’m meeting my friend, Dee-Dee, at the grocery store for provisions. My mother is joining us on Saturday.

Mom found the house in a Google search – it’s in a remote canyon about 45 minutes from town and is completely “off the grid.” Had we chosen – had we wanted – we could have rented a satellite phone to use for the week. We chose not.

So here’s my auto-reply message that will be sent to anyone who emails me during the next week: “Thanks for your email. I am grateful to have no way of receiving it or replying to it until Friday, May 13th. Until then, I’m under a big sky in Moab, Utah, thinking about all the grand possibilities for my future.”

Where could you power down? When will you make it happen?

The Koenig Family

Matt Koenig of 1 Year Sabbatical might have a few sleepless nights ahead of him.

A few weeks ago, after working through Negotiating Your Sabbatical: The Ultimate Toolkit for Writing and Presenting a Killer Sabbatical Proposal Your Boss Can’t Refuse, Matt presented his sabbatical proposal to his boss. She understood Matt’s desire to live with his wife’s family in Indonesia for a year, giving his family – especially his two young sons – time to experience and connect with his wife’s heritage. She got it. Thumbs up from the boss!

But, as in many organizations as large as the hospital where Matt works, whether Matt can take his year-long sabbatical is not a decision left entirely to his boss. Next step: HR. Matt’s boss would present his proposal to the Human Resources department and get back with him.

His readers – this one included – were on pins and needles.

The answer finally came. Company policy only allows for three months’ leave. The HR director feels they might be able to “milk it” for up to four months.

So now Matt has to decide – Does he take the four months and come back to the security of his job? Or does he graciously quit, move overseas and “make epic things happen“?

“The big thing for me is that, especially in this economy, it’d be nice to have that sense of security of knowing you have someting to come back to,” Matt told me. “Our primary concern is the financial end of it.”

Ah, yes…..money is always a top concern with sabbatical-goers. Matt’s father is a little worried, too. “In some respects, I think he understands why we want to do this,” Matt says. “But the other part of him may be thinking ‘What about your financial future? What about buying a house? What about planning for your retirement?’” All are reasonable concerns, of course.

But, as Helen Keller once said: “Security is a myth.” A job, a house, and a fully-funded retirement portfolio do not necessarily equal security. Life is full of surprises.

I’m cheering Matt on. We regularly work with companies, trying to make sabbaticals a part of every career path, and most sabbaticals offered are between 8-12 weeks. But this family sabbatical would be difficult to fulfill in that time frame. Really experiencing and feeling what it’s like to live in another country and culture takes time.

Good decisions take time, too. So we’ll anxiously wait and see what Matt decides to do.

For those of you contemplating pitching a sabbatical to your boss, Matt said this about our Negotiating Your Sabbatical workbook: “It really got me thinking about what I want out of this sabbatical time. I was able to put my thoughts together coherently and prepare myself for the meeting with my boss.” To read more, view his post about the process of writing his sabbatical proposal.

The iRelaunch Return to Work Conference is produced throughout the US and abroad by the career reentry programming company, iRelaunch, whose founders are Harvard Business School alumnae Carol Fishman Cohen and Vivian Steir Rabin, authors of Back on the Career Track. The next conference is held March 29th, 2011, at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School in Atlanta.

Sponsored Accenture, Emerson Human Capital, Ernst & Young, and WellPoint, the conference includes Carol and Vivian’s highly rated keynote and workshops, as well as valuable panels of thriving relaunchers and employers who are keenly interested in this talent pool. Speakers (and successful relaunchers) include Dean Katherine Brokaw of Emory Law School, Ann Cramer of IBM, Gail Morales of Bank of America, and Heidi Nel of Heidi’s Heavenly Cookies.

As a friend of yourSABBATICAL, there are two ways you can save on the regular fee of $160, which includes all sessions, breakfast, lunch, and a gift copy of Back on the Career Track:

• Special rate for friends of yourSABBATICAL is $130. Just type “Your Sabbatical” in the “How did you hear about us?” box on the online registration form, and you will receive a $30 credit within 48 hours.
• Want to bring a friend and save even more? Sign up with a friend by March 22, and you’ll each receive special pricing of $95. Type “Your Sabbatical Friend Offer” and the name of your friend who is also registering in the “How did you hear about us?” box to receive your $65 credits within 48 hours of both of you registering.

The iRelaunch website has more information, including a video of past participants, and how to register.

My mother is one of five finalists in the senior citizen category. Anticipation is high! To apply, she submitted a written essay and a video telling why she believes she should be chosen. Kristof says he’s looking for a person who has great communications skills and a knack for shining a spotlight and getting people to care about distant problems. In other words, he wants a compelling story teller, and Mom’s one of the best.

But she needs your help to make the final cut. Won’t you please give her 45-seconds of your time? Here’s what you can do to make a huge difference for a fabulous woman:

1. Go to Kristof’s Facebook page and you’ll see the photos of the finalists at the top. Hit the “like” button to the right so that you’re a participating member.
2. Then go to Barbara’s finalist page.
3. Mom’s video/essay submission link is under her photo, if you want to see them.
4. Most importantly, please “like” her finalist page and maybe even leave a comment!
5. If you’re inspired to do more, click “Share” so that the contest is posted to your Facebook wall and shared with your friends.

The winner will be chosen very soon. This could be the most transformational mini-sabbatical Mom’s ever had.

In less than two weeks, the yourSABBATICAL team will be in Denver for the Great Place to Work Institute’s annual conference. Companies that attend the conference are usually trying to get on (or stay on) the Fortune list and want to learn about best practices in “great places to work.” Whether a company has a sabbatical program is a factor in the application process for the annual “best employer” list.

Here are the 2011 winners with fully-paid sabbaticals, with their Fortune rank in parentheses:

• Boston Consulting Group (2)
• Recreational Equipment (9)
• DreamWorks Animation SKG (10)
• Alston & Bird (13)
• Robert W. Baird & Co. (14)
• Container Store (21)
• DPR Construction (22)
• Plante & Moran (26)
• QuikTrip (34)
• Genentech (35)
• American Express (49)
• Baker Donelson (50)
• Intel (51)
• Perkins Coie (55)
• General Mills (58)
• Adobe Systems (65)
• Microsoft (72)
• St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (80)
• Kimpton Hotels (83)
• Men’s Wearhouse (87)
• Morningstar (95)

Brendan McGovern's sabbatical send-off party.

Brendan didn’t leave without a proper send-off from his team members, who gave him a surprise sabbatical party to celebrate his well-deserved break. Party-goers were dressed in t-shirts that said “WWB$D?” an acronym for “What Would Brendan Do?” (B$ is his nickname at Meetup since he’s the money-guy.)

Says Linda Paul, Meetup’s head of team development: “When we had the surprise party one of the team members was saying that he really prepped us well for his departure, but there will be times when we have to think to ourselves . . .and then we all said ‘Hmmm . . .what would Brendan do?’ and took off our shirts to reveal the t-shirts. He LOVED it!”

What would YOU do if you had what Brendan has? Brendan’s choosing to travel the world before he returns in May – so far, he’s experienced a cruise, Costa Rica, and Australia. Maybe on your sabbatical you’d skip Australia and instead do one of these “100 Things to Do on Sabbatical.”

Whatever your sabbatical dreams, don’t just keep dreaming. Negotiate your sabbatical, even if your company doesn’t formally offer one. Jeff Jung, founder and producer of Career Break Secrets video travel guides, recently wrote this in his review of our Negotiating Your Sabbatical toolkit:

“It is a comprehensive tool that will take you through all phases of getting time off from work….I think it’s a good deal and here’s why.  Compare the price to the cost of going to an executive coach, which will run you hundreds of dollars. Talking to your company about agreeing to time off can be stress-inducing.  You want to be prepared and have thought through the pros, the cons and all the possible reactions such a discussion might trigger. This is an important conversation and you want to be prepared.  I’ve read through the book in detail and I think there’s a lot of good advice and insight that you can apply to your circumstance.”

Thanks, Jeff! And to Brendan, we wish for you disconnection, rejuvenation and transformation.

**SABBATICAL NOTICE**
–
From Feb 4  - May 16, I will be out of the office enjoying Meetup’s sabbatical program.  I will be traveling around the world, and per Meetup sabbatical policy, will not be checking email & not working. Sound nice?  www.meetup.com/jobs <http://www.meetup.com/jobs>

If there is anything you will need from me before then, please let me know very soon.

Don’t you wish you were Brendan?

My mother, Barbara Pagano, turned in her application video and essay on Tuesday night for New York Times columnist Nick Kristof’s 5th annual “Win-a-Trip” Contest. Two winners will travel with Kristof on a “reporting trip from the developing world.”

This year, Kristof added a winner slot for someone at least 60 years old; in the past, only one college student was chosen….but apparently he received some huffing and puffing from the Boomer crowd. Joining Kristof on this trip will help Barbara – and yourSABBATICAL – to example the kinds of impacts individuals and their companies can have when they allow employees to experience a sabbatical and travel, volunteer, learn and grow.

Here’s Mom’s video:

The Center for Global Development will team up with Kristof to help vet the applications and narrow them down to a short list of finalists from which Kristof will select the two winners.

Please cheer her on by “liking” or sharing the video!