Wanderlust and mental recharge: why FreeAgent encourages sabbatical leave

In our fast-paced world, it’s unsurprising that burnout is far from rare. According to a recent Mental Health UK report, nine out of 10 adults have experienced high or extreme levels of pressure or stress - one in three experiencing those levels ‘always’ or ‘often’ in the last year. That’s a lot of affected people and too much burnout. 

At FreeAgent, we care about every individual on our team and believe in a healthy work-life balance. We’re proud to be flexible employers and provide our team with health and wellbeing resources and benefits, as well as 33 days holiday, summer four-day weeks, a work anywhere policy, and a hybrid working model. But another of our lesser-known benefits is our sabbatical leave policy. 

A win-win for all 

Launched in 2019, when one of the FreeAgent team wanted to join friends in a reunion trip around Central America, our policy allows permanent employees (who have worked at FreeAgent for at least a year) to take up to three months of unpaid sabbatical leave. It also isn’t a one time thing. People can take a sabbatical every five years.

Sabbatical leave from work can not only make significant and positive changes to someone’s life, they also benefit them at work. At FreeAgent, we find people return to work reinvigorated and recharged. Studies (like this one) reiterate those benefits. What’s more, in this era of employee burnout and heightened life stresses, they’re also proving beneficial to employers. Sabbatical leave can help build employee loyalty and retain talent. 

For FreeAgent, giving our team the opportunity to take an extended break from work - whether they plan to travel, take part in voluntary work, spend time with family or finally make the time to achieve a personal goal - encourages them to embrace those opportunities that are too good to miss.

We have a lot of avid explorers at FreeAgent. (There’s even a dedicated wanderlust Slack channel to share travel tips and recommendations.) So it’s unsurprising that two of our most recent sabbatical pioneers used their extended leave to travel.

Making a delayed sabbatical a reality

Kate MacNay is a Lead Editor on the Content team at FreeAgent. She and her husband, Matt, had originally planned a sabbatical in 2020, but Covid thwarted their plans. Fast forward a few years later, Kate had joined FreeAgent and was pleasantly surprised to discover the sabbatical policy. “It was great to see a policy that kind of matched big corporations. It’s quite surprising that a size of business like FreeAgent has such a good sabbatical policy,” says Kate.

Their adventure started with a wedding in Cambodia, then van life while exploring New Zealand. The next chapter of their trip took them across the Pacific Ocean to the Patagonia region in Chile, where they donned their hiking gear for an epic trek through the Andes. (Travel envy guaranteed from the photo below!) Next stop was Buenos Aires, then sailing from Panama to the top of Colombia. Kate and Matt braved their walking boots again for the ambitious Salkantay Trek, ending on a high when they reached Machu Picchu. A few days in stunning Rio was the finale of the trip. They then flew back to the UK - home on a Friday and back to work on the Monday. 

Kate’s advice to make the most of a jam-packed sabbatical? “From a practical standpoint, plan your route more than you think you should. If you can map out your key stops, you can get the expensive things - like flights and treks - booked in early, keeping you on track and on budget,” says Kate.

Extending solo travel to Southeast Asia

Following in Kate’s footsteps, at the start of this year, another member of the FreeAgent team embarked on an exciting travel adventure. Paige Barclay, a Senior Product Manager at FreeAgent, set off on her three-month sabbatical. Before her trip, Paige had been interested in a sabbatical for a while and already enjoyed shorter solo trips. “I find when you encounter other people who are travelling by themselves, they tend to be very social, open and spontaneous, which is just really nice,” explains Paige.

When she came across FreeAgent’s sabbatical policy while taking a look through employee benefits, Paige was drawn to the idea of taking on a longer stint of solo travel further afield. “Three months feels like a good amount of time to not feel overwhelmed by a totally new thing… It doesn’t feel intimidating for the first time you do something like that,” says Paige. 

Paige is currently somewhere on her action-packed itinerary of Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Hong Kong, and Singapore. We’re looking forward to hearing the highlights when she’s back! 

Top tips for requesting sabbatical leave at FreeAgent 

Before formally requesting sabbatical leave, Kate and Paige both chose to have informal conversations with their managers to float the idea and discuss the logistics of being away. “Be proactive and think about how you could cover yourself effectively… By being as helpful as possible, you make the decision as easy as possible,” suggests Paige.

Kate shared similar advice. “Share the idea with your manager as early as possible. Have a conversation about how it could work before you commit because it’s a big commitment and it’s worth remembering what you’re asking of your manager and the rest of the team. Being respectful of that gives people enough time to come up with a plan,” says Kate. 

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