After every 5 years of working at Clef, employees are encouraged to take a one-quarter (12 contiguous weeks) paid sabbatical.
During this sabbatical, they should work on passion projects -- something outside the scope of their normal work that is interesting and exciting to them. This could be researching a topic of interest, working for the US Digital Service, helping a nonprofit, or something else altogether.
The sabbatical should be a time of self-improvement and exploration with a central activity or theme. At the end of the sabbatical, the employee should put together a presentation about their sabbatical and present it to the team when they get back to the office.
The sabbatical is meant to help further our core value of improvement by letting the employee explore and learn about another area of interest. It may also help some employees avoid burnout from working on one thing for too long.
To make sure that sabbatical is not overly disruptive to their team, employees should have taken fewer than twelve weeks of paid time off in the year before a sabbatical. They should also notify the team that they will be taking the sabbatical at least 4 weeks in advance.
There is an expectation that employees return to work at Clef after their sabbatical, and not use it as a soft exit from the company. We may set some policy to enforce this later.
Paid time off of any kind, including Sabbatical, does not accrue additional paid time off in the form of vacation days, sick days, or time towards sabbatical. For instance, an employee who has accrued 3 sick days before taking a 12 week sabbatical will still have 3 available sick days when they return.