Source : THE AGE NEWS
A three-month holiday to travel through South America was a lifelong dream for Sydney marketing director Ayaan Mohamud. But approaching her boss with the proposal took some courage.
“I thought I’d have to quit my job and take six months off, then return and find a new job. But I’m in a job I really love and was desperate to travel, so wanted to find a way to make it work,” the 38-year-old says.
Ayaan Mohamud (left) with best friends Sophia Warren, says negotiating extended leave was nerve-racking.
She invited her boss for a coffee and laid out her plan on the table. She explained her dream to travel and her hope to return to her role after the break. “It was one of the most nerve-racking conversations I’ve ever had,” she says.
Ayaan had worked for the marketing company for four years and had no desire to have children, and she explained to her boss that she would never take advantage of the maternity leave options extended to her colleagues.
She also offered solutions to minimise the impact on the business, and promised to make herself available for emergencies. “I explained that I would love the company to give me time to pursue something that I love,” she says.
To her surprise, her request was approved and the company’s leave policies were rewritten to include extended leave options for high performers. Part of her leave was paid and part was unpaid.
She took the trip with her best friend and housemate Sophia Warren, admitting it took about three weeks to really disconnect. “Being on a day hike in Patagonia with nothing else to do but be in nature with your thoughts also gave me space to come up with new ideas, so I made notes on my phone to capture those things to do with work.”
While in Argentina, she stumbled upon a discount 10-day cruise to Antarctica, where she watched penguin colonies, tried stand-up paddleboarding and kayaking while whales breached around her. She’s been back a little over a year.
Extended downtime
University of Melbourne research found that one in two employees aged between 18 and 54 feel exhausted at work. Taking a sabbatical can reduce stress and improve work-life balance.
But jobs site Seek points out that workers aren’t legally entitled to unpaid or paid sabbatical leave, so it’s up to companies to decide whether their employees can take a sabbatical.
Seek says major corporations like Adobe, Commonwealth Bank and Deloitte offer sabbaticals, while government agencies also offer employees the chance to purchase sabbatical leave.
However, redistributing your workload for an extended break can be extensive. It took Sydney’s Taslim Begum months to redistribute her duties as a product manager in one of the big four banks before she was able to step away for an eight-month sabbatical.
She planned to focus on her health, travel, spend time with family, work on some passion projects and do some soul-searching, returning in April this year.
While it took a fair bit of planning, she loved her time off. “I had never taken off more than a few weeks before, so it was amazing being able to take so much leave at once,” she says.
Mohamud says timing is everything. She proposed to start her leave at the end of the year when projects tend to slow down for several weeks, taking pressure off the team.
She also laid out a map detailing how her responsibilities would be split among team members.
“It’s important to have a plan, communicate your value and show the boss that you’ve thought about how it will impact them,” she says.
“I was very structured in the way I approached it and offered solution, rather than leaving it up to management to figure out how to cover me while I was away.”
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