Irene Krechoweicka
Taking a break gives you renewed energy and motivation, enabling you to gain the most from your working life. Breaks made with an employer’s support are by far the easiest to mend. Here’s how to persuade your boss to give you some time off:
l Prepare a strong case. Enlightened employers can be persuaded of the added value taking time out brings to them and you. Show how you’ll gain new ideas, insights and contacts that will make you a better employee. Explain why you’re at the stage where it will make a significant contribution to your personal and career development. Highlight the benefits for them and suggest solutions to problems your extended absence may cause.
l Have respectable reasons. Just needing time off is not good enough – try calling it a sabbatical period and include something that sounds worthy. Possibilities include: further study, research, humanitarian work, pregnancy, purposeful travel or other character- building exploits. With a little imagination you can combine one of these with almost any other activity that appeals to you. But be warned, a baby is not just for a career break, it’s for life. The others have fewer long-term consequences.
l Be mindful of others. Things will not be the same when you come back. Colleagues will have managed perfectly well without you and will no doubt be a little resentful. Friends and enemies alike may have helped themselves to the nicer bits of your job. Ease yourself back in gently, don’t boast about the wonderful time you’ve had and accept that there’s always a price to pay for the good things. If your work ethic has been damaged, don’t let it show. That could deny others the chance of a similar escape.