Some Firms Find Dividends In Required Paid Time Off

When it comes to paid time off, accountants don’t necessarily have all the figures.

There’s a return on investment, many partners said, that’s difficult to quantify in terms of hard numbers, but it’s obvious that extended leave produces a happier, healthier and better trained workforce.

BKD LLP, which has offices in Little Rock, Fort Smith and Rogers, implemented a required sabbatical program for its partners more than a decade ago. Partners rotate spending a full month away from work once every five years.

“We do this for several reasons,” Little Rock managing partner Ryan Underwood said. “One is to recharge our batteries. The other primary reason is to give others in the firm an opportunity to take over our responsibilities while we’re gone. It’s a way of grooming people who someday will be partners by giving them frontline experience.”

Underwood’s next leave is set to begin July 16. It will be his second such vacation in his career, and should take him far from the world of auditing financial institutions, which is his primary practice.

“When I leave for this four-week period, I can tell you exactly who is going to be responsible,” he said. “It gives that individual an opportunity to deal with issues they never otherwise would have come across. We think that’s a big benefit for our people.”

The accounting industry isn’t the only one that has required leave policies – many banks and other high-stress industries do as well – but it seems to be the most prevalent in Arkansas.

Most workers lack such a fortuitous turn. U.S. workers receive an average of 13 to 14 vacation days per year, according a recent online survey by Harris Interactive. But then there are the lucky few – like Underwood and Co. – who receive much more.

“I think it really depends on the company culture and the level of stress involved,” said Sue Murphy, manager at the National Human Resources Association. She points to the world of finance, along with science and technology, as being familiar to sabbatical-type efforts. Companies sometimes want employees to spend that time professionally engaged by attending trainings or possibly writing reports.

Still, there are certain perceived negatives. Some worry it could be career limiting if their boss were to decide someone else is better at their job. Some workers would prefer extra vacation time if they could choose – and added that sabbatical programs aren’t necessarily rising in popularity because, in the past, employees have used them to shop themselves and locate new jobs.

Patricia Studer, a clinical psychologist in Fayetteville and president of the Psychologists of Northwest Arkansas, believes the benefits of such programs range from the creation of a mentally healthy work environment to reducing stress in general as well as absenteeism while also boosting productivity.

“Studies show training a new employee is much more costly than retaining able employees,” Studer said. “Who wouldn’t want to stay with a company like that?”

Valuable employees are worth the trouble, and keeping them rested, relaxed and cognizant that there is life away from work can be benefitial. Studer said another reason more companies don’t employ such programs is because the benefits are not readily clear.

On that point, Studer asks and answers her own question. “If you pay for an hour off, how is that going to come back to you? But it obviously does.”

Coleman Peterson, former Wal-Mart executive and current president and CEO of human resources consulting firm Hollis Enterprises LLC, believes getting away from the daily pressures of work life is essential for top-level managers.

“My view is the well-balanced executive who really is prepared for the long term will have a good balance between work and play,” he said.

“If executives don’t know what to do when they have time off, it’s all the more reason to take time off. Some of the best executives I knew were very good at taking time off. This concept of being an executive who works 24/7 isn’t my idea of what a successful executive looks like.”

Regarding sabbaticals, “I look at educational institutions and really admire that,” Peterson said. “We would be well served if we had the ability and courage to do that on the corporate side. Businesses have to be assertive about their senior people taking time, and the best way to communicate that you are serious about it is to illustrate it yourself.

“Managers who talk about getting away have to do it themselves.”

 

Time Tested

“It’s not so much a vacation as it is a healthy event for the partnership,” said Mark Lundy, a BKD partner in Rogers who hasn’t yet had a sabbatical.

For Lundy, the sabbaticals are like tests that examine whether the client-partnership ties are as strong as they need to be.

“It’s about the transition of client relationships,” Lundy said. “It’s about making sure the client is taken care of.”

Not surprisingly, sabbaticals range in length from firm to firm. PricewaterhouseCoopers began offering a program last year to employees in which they can take time away from work – months, potentially, and hopefully during the summer – in exchange for receiving 20 percent pay during the interim.

Accounting firm Beall Barclay & Co. PLC began offering a sabbatical program in 2009 for senior partners who have been with the company for at least 10 years. CFO and firm administrator Carolyn Medeiros said a partner was away from the firm for three months last year. 

Sam Fiser, CEO at S.F. Fiser & Co. in Springdale, said his 19-person firm has normal vacation days, although some employees who have been with the firm several years could end up with five to six weeks away from work annually.

“If you’re trying to compete for talent it’s important,” he said. “For the people who enter the profession and leave after four or five years, it doesn’t mean a lot.”

Fiser said the easiest way to achieve a good balance between family and home life is through vacation time.

“I know that is important to the younger people we hire, more so than the older people who have been here a long time,” he said. “When you’re trying to start a family that means an awful lot.”

Accountants aren’t the only ones required to occasionally stay away from work. Wilks Marshall, assistant deputy commissioner at the Arkansas State Bank Department, notes best practices suggesting that all bank employees stay away from their place of business for brief periods on an annual basis (for instance, it’s nine days at The Bank of Fayetteville). 

“The theory is if something is amiss, then it will come up while that person is away,” Marshall said. “It’s very rare that anything turns up. It’s just a standard practice.”

It’s worth noting that vacation times need not be required to have a rewarding effect on employees. After all, it’s common for professors at the University of Arkansas (once they have obtained tenure) to enjoy sabbaticals every seven years.

And then there’s Sharmila Mounce, business operations manager at Arkansas Power Electronics International Inc., who said her company believes in rewarding senior management who often work long, stressful hours – from all-expense paid trips to France, Japan and Las Vegas to taking time on Fridays for employees to play golf or go to the movies.

Those efforts are paying off. In May the Fayetteville employer earned a Governor’s Work-Life Balance.

“We try to get the best of the best people and we want to keep them here,” she said. “We want to show them they are appreciated.”