Uber sabbatical shift opens new front in worker flexibility crackdown

The sabbatical is a popular workplace benefit, and it doesn’t come at a great cost to employers. Yet, at Uber, eligibility restrictions just got tighter, and that might motivate other large employers to take a look at this approach to offering employees extra time off, especially in an era where the shift to greater worker flexibility has quickly swung back in favor of corporate bosses.

Late last month, the ride-hailing company informed employees that its eligibility requirement for a month-long paid sabbatical would increase from five years at the company to eight years. The company’s CEO offered what amounted to an “I’m sorry, but …” response for the big stick he’s wielding in this case over the carrot.

“If you’re here for a sabbatical and this change causes you to change your mind, it is what it is,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told employees at an April 29 all-hands meeting, according to audio and correspondence obtained by CNBC.

The other workplace change Uber made at the time got more headline attention — Uber announced employees will be required to come into the office three days a week, up from two, starting in June. That’s a move that places Uber firmly in line with most corporate employers five years after Covid.

Its tougher stance on sabbaticals, on the other hand, hasn’t been matched yet by other companies. But given the overall lower tolerance companies have for workplace flexibility, some human resources and management professionals predict that others could follow Uber’s lead. 

“If another company is making changes, other companies feel the door is open to make changes themselves,” said Lauren Winans, chief executive of Next Level Benefits, a human resources consulting firm.

Unpaid time off as a benefits trend is rising

As far as work benefits go, the paid sabbatical remains a perk for the minority of workers at some of the nation’s largest companies. The percentage of companies offering paid sabbaticals has been pretty consistent since 2020, according to data from the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans. A mere 6.3% of companies offered paid sabbatical leave in 2020, a figure that rose to 6.8% in 2022 and ticked down to 6.6% in 2024. The organization won’t collect new data on paid sabbaticals until 2026.

While the percentage of companies offering paid sabbaticals is relatively steady, the percentage of those offering unpaid sabbaticals has been climbing. That figure stood at 14.7% in 2024, up from 11.6% in 2022 and 9.9% in 2020. Unpaid sabbaticals tend to be employee-initiated, and they tend to ask for three to six months, or more, said Kira Schabram, assistant professor at the Michael G. Foster School of Business at the University of Washington.

“It is a major benefit that employees want and doesn’t cost employers a lot of money,” and it has benefits for employees and employers alike, Schabram said. 

It might cost employers in other ways, though, which was part of the message from Uber’s CEO in cracking down on its one-month paid policy. “The reason we want you to be here is the impact on the company. The learning here,” Khosrowshahi told employees.

Schabram predicts some companies will put extra restrictions on sabbaticals, or eliminate them. Some might lengthen the tenure required before a sabbatical can be taken, while some might institute other criteria, such as finding and training a replacement before the time off can be approved. 

“I would not be surprised if other such firms now follow suit, in the same way that layoffs in one tend to beget layoffs in another,” said Schabram, who is also a scholar with the Academy of Management, a professional association for scholars of management and organizations.

Research on sabbaticals says they are beneficial

If more employers do tighten sabbatical policies, it will be going against the research, which highlights that sabbaticals are almost unequivocally beneficial. “At best, employees return with renewed energy and skills, often making a quick leap into new projects or being promoted into leadership positions,” Schabram said. At worst, employees who were already burnt out and less engaged leave instead of quiet quitting, she added. 

Ellen Ernst Kossek, an Academy of Management scholar and distinguished professor at Purdue University’s Daniels School of Business, expects companies to retrench on both paid and unpaid sabbaticals, starting with moves that match Uber’s targeting of paid time off. “We’re not very good at investing in people’s long term in Corporate America,” Ernst Kossek said. “I think it is part of the shift in employer thinking — away from flexibility.”

In Uber’s case, its sabbatical program was created “when Uber was a much younger company, and when reaching 5 years of tenure was a rare feat,” Khosrowshahi wrote in a memo to employees. At the time, Uber staffers were in the office five or more days a week, he wrote, and the company hadn’t instituted a policy allowing employees to work from a location of their choice up to four weeks per year. 

An Uber spokesperson said that anyone who has reached five years, or will reach five years in 2025, will still be eligible under the original policy. 

Schabram contends that companies should be offering employees more paid time off for sabbaticals as opposed to tightening the reins. To be effective, the tenure should be a minimum of three months, she said, adding that six months is more ideal based on feedback received by employees who have taken a sabbatical lasting six months or longer. Some people who were only able to take three months felt they didn’t reap the maximum benefits, she said.

What Lyft, Meta, Adobe, Bank of America offer

Private-sector companies rarely offer such long leaves for paid sabbaticals, though policies vary widely. They often range from four to six weeks and don’t kick in until an employee attains five years of service, said Julie Stich, vice president of content at International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans.

Lyft’s sabbatical policy, for example, provides eligible full-time team members who have completed five years of continuous service with up to six weeks of paid leave. Meta’s allows for 30 continuous calendar days of paid time off after every five years of service.

Bank of America’s sabbatical program eligibility, which doesn’t begin until 15 years of service, allows employees up to two sabbaticals per their tenure at the company. The sabbatical can be a four-, five- or six-week paid leave, depending on their years of employment. Citi’s program for employees in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, Canada, the UK, Hong Kong, Costa Rica, Singapore and Japan, applies to employees who have been at Citi for at least five years and provides 12 weeks of leave, at 25% of base pay. Employees continue to receive health and insurance benefits coverage.

Adobe, meanwhile, allows employees in certain countries, including the U.S. and Canada, to take a sabbatical every five years. At five years, they receive four weeks paid time off; at 10 years, they receive five weeks paid time off; at 15 years and at every five-year increment after, they receive six weeks paid time off.

These companies told CNBC they have made no changes to their policies, but Ernst Kossek said workers should read between the lines of the message from corporate America. “Time and flexibility are increasingly going to be a contested terrain between employers and employees and sabbaticals will be one of the first to go because it’s time off for employees to use however they wish,” she said.

Ernst Kossek is concerned that employers will increasingly view it as unneeded time off that can have an impact on the company’s bottom line, and that’s too bad, say workplace culture experts. A sabbatical is a proactive way to prevent burnout, and for top talent it can be especially important.

“It tends not to be a huge expense for most organizations, unless you end up having multiple people out at the same time, because then you have a workload issue,” said Winans. But many times, companies require advance notice so workload issues can be addressed.

If an employee happens to be on the fence about staying with an organization, and is close to meeting the eligibility requirement, it can encourage the individual to stay. “It can spur loyalty to the organization to stay for the long haul,” Winans said.

Companies should at least think twice before tweaking their policies. Young people especially appreciate sabbaticals, and if not offered the opportunity, they’re more likely to quit, take six months off and look for another job, according to Schabram. “Young people are much more attracted to them as an employee benefit,” she said.