Step Out. Step Up.
Marlo Gaal, who hires employees as corporate HR director for Hyatt Hotels Corporation, says a sabbatical on a resume has the potential to make a candidate more interesting. “It’s an upside [for a candidate] because I appreciate the diversity,” Gaal says, in a US News & World Report article [...]
Becoming competitive in the next economy means employers must execute talent branding and become known as a talent magnet. According to an article in this month’s Talent Management magazine, here are five steps for talent branding that companies should employ:
Use talent mapping. Segment the workforce into separate roles based on their business value and differentiate [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Returning to work after a long sabbatical or hiatus that wasn’t employer-sponsored?
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 [...]
What do people usually want to do on sabbatical? Learn something, travel, and give back are the top answers we hear. Pulitzer-winning journalist Nick Kristof of The New York Times is offering all three in his Win-a-Trip 2011 contest. He’ll take a college student and a senior citizen along with him to a developing country [...]
The number of companies on Fortune’s coveted “Best Companies to Work For” list that offer fully-paid sabbaticals keeps inching up. This year, 21 companies on the list offer sabbaticals, up from 19 in 2010 and 15 in 2009. Are you seeing a trend?
In less than two weeks, the yourSABBATICAL team will be in Denver for [...]
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Meetup’s first sabbatical-goer, Brendan McGovern, the company’s CFO, departed last month for his three month, fully paid sabbatical - an opportunity offered to all Meetup employees after every seven years of employment (who wouldn’t want to work at that company, huh?).
Brendan didn’t leave without a proper send-off from his team members, who gave him a [...]
I received an email from Brendan McGovern, CFO of Meetup, and here’s what was below his name:
**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? [...]
In our small world of work with companies that offer sabbaticals to their employees, Meetup reins as one of the most generous and forward-thinking. The “world’s largest network of local groups” has just rolled out a program - yes, even in “this” economy - offering its employees a paid, three-month, unrestricted sabbatical after every seven [...]
Is the concept of boredom funny only because it seems nearly impossible to be bored these days?
Boring 2010, held in London in December, drew 200 people for 20 interminable hours. Presentations included “My Relationship With Bus Routes,” “The Intangible Beauty of Car Park Roofs,” one individual’s three year and running sneeze count, and “Personal Reflections [...]
Almost 2,000 entries were received for the IKEA sabbatical contest, and five finalists have been chosen. Now through January 17th, you can cast your vote for the winner, who will receive a year-long sabbatical worth $100,000 and a 3-day/2-night trip to a spa resort in Phoenix, Ariz., to participate in a one-hour life coaching session [...]
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal confirmed that the more grateful I am, the more energy, optimism, social connections and happiness I will experience. I know this to be true, but sometimes I “fall out of” gratitude.
Two years ago, I started - and subsequently stopped - a gratitude journal. Each day, I noted the things I [...]
We love hearing about small companies that offer sabbaticals to their employees. Each one serves as an example to hold up to the naysayers who claim that “sabbaticals are for big companies.”
Today’s example: Capterra. Founded in 1999, the Arlington, VA-based online marketplace for software solutions offers all of its employees (currently number 20) a five-week, [...]
If you’ve been lucky enough to travel internationally, you probably met other travelers along your way. And you may have noticed: travelers from countries outside the United States usually travel for longer periods of time than Americans do.
How many Americans have you met recently who have vacationed for longer than a week? Right. Even a [...]
Write an essay about how you would use $100,000 to help others and you could win a chance to do just that with the IKEA Life Improvement Sabbatical Contest.
If you ever dreamed of changing your life and someone else’s, this is one big opportunity.
What: Hoping to help people who want to help others is the [...]
An article in today’s Wall Street Journal discusses the role of chance in saving for retirement, arguing that we can’t depend on the average 30-year return that’s often touted. Much depends on which 30-year period we’re investing in. If your career coincides with a relatively flat period or the markets, there’s going to be a [...]
Over a cup of coffee at Folly Beach, a wise friend told me what I needed to hear.
I’ve experienced several major changes in my life during the last six months, including putting a home I’ve owned for 13 years on the market and moving to another state. I told my friend that I feel as [...]
Post-recession demographics are not only showing that baby boomers plan on working longer to recoup from the financial collapse. What’s also now clear is the way they intend to work in the future - and that has major consequences for talent managers, who must rethink their policies to support the new workplace realty that is [...]
An article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal told of the latest “American Time Use Survey” released by the Labor Department on Tuesday.
It seems we now have extra time to spend each day due to rising unemployment. Okay, that I understand - a person without a job might have more spare time than those who are [...]
If you’re a small- or medium-sized company that wants to roll out a sabbatical program for your employees and be on our “Workplaces for Sabbaticals” list, we finally have the perfect solution for you.
We get a lot of inquiries from companies that are passionate about joining the ranks of innovative, “best” employers and are serious [...]
This was the title of an article in last Saturday’s Wall Street Journal. Two experts answered the question. Clay Shirky says “Smarter”. Nicholas Carr argues “Dumber”.
I was struck by some of Carr’s thinking, especially this: “…a growing body of evidence suggests that the Net, with its constant distractions and interruptions, is also turning us into [...]
This past weekend, my mother moved her 95-year-old father from Ohio to Pensacola, Florida, and into an assisted living facility a couple of miles up the road from her house. She had two siblings helping her, but this was still a time-consuming, logistical ordeal. Have you ever prepared an almost-centurion to get through TSA? Have [...]