Has anyone ever taken a 'sabbatical' from work?

[VisitingThem]

Even though I've been progressing well with my career its been a shit few years. Pandemic, working while others were furloughed, insufficient staffing levels after, lots of stress and now a bereavement and I just feel like I need a long break.

I'm thinking about asking to take a 6 month holiday, unpaid. I would give plenty of notice, thinking about asking now for it to start May next year. Problem is I'm in a situation at work where they would need to hire someone else to cover me, but in reality they need to hire someone else to work with me anyway because I'm drowning at the moment.

It's the sort of thing some of my friends did in their 20's, to travel etc. I'm nearly 40.

Has anyone else taken a long break like this, and ask their employer to 'hold their job' so to speak?

Just to add that there is an additional entitlement to parental leave if you have children with disabilities.

I started mine on the 11th of August so I’m nearly two months into a 6 month break.

Mine is a bit different in that I own my business and my team are handling everything whilst I am away. I hired a temp Manager to supervise the team and put all CEO projects on hold.

I felt like you did, needing to get away and reset. It was burnout for sure and I didn’t realise it until DH pointed it out to me.

Even after just two months I feel like a totally different woman. Before I was at my desk for 8 or 9 hours sometimes doing as little as 1200 steps 🫣

Now I walk for an hour every morning listening to my audiobook. I swim three times a week and am just being me, trying not to do anything too taxing. It’s been a revelation.

I plan on returning to work in January.

We are thinking of negotiating this, though due to his position dp would work 2 days a week equivalent remotely, possibly me as well (means buying decent compact laptops but worth it for sure). The idea is we would travel for 2-4 days then have 2-3 nights in one place to both work, explore and do boring things like washing. I'm also planning on blogging/vlogging. Still a bit of a pipe dream but dp is going to broach with head office when they are here, they are into work life balance so fingers crossed. I'd want to go in April 24

DD took a four month sabbatical and went to Australia. When she came back she refused to return to work until they upgraded her job title and salary. She had a wonderful time.

Not sure if maybe it's changed? Our research only started this year. But it's definitely 4 weeks flat amount per child under 18, per year now.

@FruitPastilleNut just had a look and we're both right - it's 18 weeks total per child until their 18th birthday but you're capped 4 weeks of that per child per year. I guess that stops people with multiple children taking extended periods off.

I'm on one now. I am just resting and taking care of my kids and taking care of myself. I was very burnt out and also discovered I have ME/CFS.

Not a sabbatical but each year I take a months parental leave during summer. This is unpaid but a legal requirement for companies to offer it when an employee has a child for reasons such as wanting to spend more time with the child. It makes a huge difference to me and out family to be able to do that and work have taken it in their stride. www.gov.uk/parental-leave

Ah I see! Thank you, I didn't realise there was a total cap.

This is correct but you can take 4 weeks per year per child. My plan is to take a month each summer while I have first school aged kids and there still should be some leave remaining incase of urgent needs later. It's a really useful policy!

I am at the moment. We have three very young kids including twin babies and for reasons including my husband's previous employer going bust during Covid, I pretty much worked through every maternity. I'm just done from top to bottom.

Taking time while our oldest transitions to nursery and the twins are changing every day. It's a little scary from a career and finance perspective, but I would be so sad to miss their babyhood altogether. Increasingly I don't think I'll be able to go back though. This time has changed something fundamental in me, or maybe I left it too late. Now using the time to think very seriously about where we go from here.

I’m early 50s and was made redundant from a professional role. I’m having two years of doing bits and pieces of low paid jobs - which bring me joy and enable me to spend the time with my daughter that she needs right now. It has had huge mental and physical health benefits. I plan to go back to ‘real’ work at some point, I just don’t know when!

Thank you everyone, I'm going to float the idea to my boss after I've got through the funeral but its great to hear so many posotive stories.

I took a year's sabbatical to do a master's a few years ago with a view to changing career. I then got made redundant towards the end but found a great job in the area I'd trained in. I had a great time, learned loads and it was wonderful to get off the treadmill for a bit (although doing a master's was seriously hard work).