When televisions around the world flashed film footage of the calamitous consequences of the massive earthquake in Pakistan last year, we were transfixed by the images. But the coverage of damage to villages, Pakistanis struggling to find loved ones in collapsed buildings and people walking for mile upon mile to try to reach help had a far greater effect on Aamina Riaz than on most of us.
Riaz, who emigrated from Pakistan to Canada as a child and was working in London at the time, wanted to do more to help than just donate money. ‘I had seen people give a lot in terms of time and money,’ she explains. ‘I wanted to give time to the country, as I have roots there.’ She decided to swap her corporate lifestyle in London, where she worked on private finance initiatives as a manager in advisory services for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), to work in Pakistan.
The set-up
Taking time out from the corporate career race was not as hard to arrange as Riaz had thought. She discovered PwC had a relationship with VSO, the international development NGO that places applicants in jobs in developing countries. She did have to make a business case for her sabbatical but, once that was accepted, PwC was very supportive. And before she left she talked with colleagues who had already taken career breaks about their experiences. During her time in Lahore, Riaz has worked with two NGOs, doing basic tasks like bookkeeping, training staff on Excel and advising on how to make presentations.
‘A lot of flexibility is required,’ she says. ‘I’ve had to relearn how to do things and [do] without items I take for granted.’ She’s due to return to London later this year and sees clear benefits from her time away: ‘I’ve made a lot of friends and I now see the world from a different perspective.’ VSO’s head of corporate partnerships, Joel Voysey, says career breaks from the financial world are growing in popularity and acceptability. ‘People are increasingly finding they want something beyond the workplace,’ he says.
‘People want to give something back. We are looking for people with IT, HR or business-management skills. These can really help in developing countries. This is an area we can grow significantly.’ When VSO was set up 50 years ago volunteers were typically in their early 20s. Now the average age is approaching 40 and some volunteers are as old as 75.
Placements used to be a fixed two years but there’s now a variety of schemes lasting from a couple of months to much longer, and the organization has recruitment bases around the world.
Save it for later Age is no longer the issue it once was, with many development charities seeking to recruit experienced executives to make use of their management and financial skills in the developing world. Richard Harvey, CEO of UK-based insurance company Aviva, recently announced that he and his wife will spend a year in Malawi, Kenya and Mozambique on microfinance and education projects for Concern Universal, following his retirement in July.
Concern welcomes the skills Harvey brings as a former CEO of a FTSE 100 company. ‘Partnerships with the corporate sector are increasingly important for organizations like ours,’ says Ian Williams, Concern’s executive director. ‘And it’s a great opportunity for us to share our work with Richard and Kay. More and more people like them are taking a gap year much later in life.’
Not everyone who takes a sabbatical is looking to work in the developing world, however. Some want to improve skills, or simply broaden their experience. Nick Bell, now based in New York as senior managing director at proxy solicitation firm the Altman Group, took a sabbatical in 2002 that allowed him to travel in Europe – where he was able to return to Italy and improve his language skills – as well as go hiking along the coast of Maine.
During this time away from work pressure Bell reassessed his career and took a look at where he wanted it to go next. He believes there is flexibility in the IR industry for people to take sabbaticals and return with new skills, renewed by the experience. Returning to his career at Altman he felt he had landed on his feet and ‘knew exactly where I wanted to run. There was no issue from my clients that I had been away for a year.’
But negotiating that career break may take all your persuasive skills. Some employers will be easily convinced, others more resistant. Oskar Yasar, executive director at VMA Search, says even in the highly pressured world of IR it is possible to take a career break of three to six months without it having a negative effect on career development. For the employing company, he says, the problem may be finding interim cover for the position, depending on the ‘nature and confidentiality’ of the job. ‘It’s possible, and it does happen, but it may be difficult,’ he cautions.
Simon Bassett at recruitment agency the EMR Group reckons it’s important to get your timing right, and advises making a pitch for a sabbatical after working in the industry for 10 years, rather than two. But he says a sabbatical of three to nine months is ‘not really an issue’.
And the business case?
VSO research among volunteers finds nearly 92 percent feeling more capable of handling different cultures, more than half claiming a better problem-solving ability, and 46 percent boasting improved influencing skills. That sounds like a better deal for employers than the average training course.
