IN NORMAL times it can be difficult to convince your employer to let you have eight weeks off work to go travelling, rejig your work-life balance or devote time to personal projects. These are not normal times, though. In the recession of 2009, organisations are bending over backwards to persuade staff to take partially paid or unpaid leave.
According to Andy Peat, head of business development and marketing at British law firm McGrigors, the argument is simple. “In law and professional services, the main cost base is people and property,” he says. “Asking people to take unpaid leave is the easiest way to reduce costs. Redundancy should be a last resort and this preserves capacity for the upturn.”
Peat’s firm is asking staff to take two weeks unpaid leave over the summer. “We’ve had 95 per cent take-up and most people will just merge it with their holidays.”
Other companies are offering larger chunks of time off. Max Teichler is the managing director for Germany of international insurance intermediary Willis. He is using his company’s scheme to take two months off at 50 per cent of his salary to travel round Iceland in a camper van with his family. “As soon as Willis offered it, I thought, ‘That’s great’,” he says. “Financially, I will feel it, but it’s a fantastic opportunity.”
He adds: “It’s only by taking this amount of time that we can do what we really want to do. If we see somewhere we like, we can stop for a few days, and spending eight weeks with both parents will be very good for the children.”
Teichler says many people were a little surprised by his decision. “My colleagues were dumbfounded when I told them. They said, ‘You’re one of the two MDs here, how can you do that?’ ” But, he says, all it takes is some organisation and a mobile phone in case he needs to be contacted.
At British Airways, the conditions are forcing a rethink of every aspect of the business. “We are facing the harshest trading conditions ever and we are asking all 40,000 staff to [help] reduce our costs,” the airline says.
Flexible arrangements on offer include part-time working and stints of unpaid leave. For some, it may simply be an extra week off while others are likely to take a few months. “It is early days but we are already hearing that quite a few staff will use this time away to work for a charity or take part in a good cause,” the company adds.
It is not the first time the airline has implemented such a policy. After the downturn in travel following the 2001 terrorist attacks, “many staff took unpaid leave to work in charities around the world especially in Africa, where we have very strong links with Unicef”.
Personal coach Miranda Kennett of UK consultancy First Class Coach suggests that as well as regaining some work-life balance, leave can also be spent taking stock. People should “use some of the time to review your job, the things you enjoy about it and the things you’d like to change to make it more satisfying.”
While extra time off is a great opportunity for some, for others it may not be, especially if it is non-voluntary and they are in a poor financial position. However, one cannot help but be impressed by what the partners at McGrigors are doing. Like the rest of the staff, they will not be paid for two weeks during the summer but, unlike the rest, they will not be getting any leave either. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009)
