Recover, Explore, Practice: The Transformative Potential of Sabbaticals

Sabbaticals have seen an exponential growth in adoption over the last two decades and are ascribed extensive benefits by employers and employees alike. Little is known, however, about how individuals spend their time or how their experiences impact them after they return to work. Drawing on narrative interviews with 50 diverse professionals, we discover that sabbaticals combine “building blocks”— distinct periods dedicated to recover, explore, or practice— into three typical trajectories: working holidays (alternating recovery and practice), free dives (alternating recovery and exploration), and quests (unfolding from recovery to exploration to practice). While participants returned from all sabbaticals feeling affirmed in their own voice, periods of exploration and practice were associated with the extent to which sabbaticals fundamentally changed their self-narrative and disrupted the trajectory of their working lives. Those on working holidays tended to return to their former lives (though with a greater confidence and need for balance), while free divers pursued better fitting but similar work (e.g., a change in position or employer), and questers were most likely to make drastic career changes. Our model extends the breaks literature and authenticity scholarship, and offers insights to those considering a sabbatical.