What are you measuring in terms of productivity? The employee certainly improves their value in terms of skills acquired during a sabbatical. The employee also

What are you measuring in terms of productivity? The employee certainly improves their value in terms of skills acquired during a sabbatical. The employee also gains significantly in terms of value of life experiences when they take time to travel, support kids, etc. Certainly there are unproductive poor team players who dissapear whenever trouble happens but we shouldn't set our policies based on this minority.