Like cities across the United States, the city of Englewood, Colorado, endeavors to provide a benefits package to employees that respects their commitment to the organization while also being an effective steward of public funds at a time of high inflation and declining and/or stagnant revenues.

Over the past several years, the city has worked to implement low-cost, innovative changes to its benefits program, including:

• The establishment of EngleCares, a program through which employees may volunteer during the workday.

• Changing the retirement vesting schedule from five years to one year for all employees.

• Using forfeiture funds from those who leave the city before vesting to create a small percentage match to the city’s 457 retirement savings plan.

The city’s benefits broker noted that benefits offered by the city are “out of this world,” a theme that the city leaned into this fall with a space-themed “Out of This World” benefits fair. To ensure that benefits are innovative and meet the needs of employees, the city solicits, through focus groups as well as an annual employee satisfaction survey, ideas from employees for the leadership team (directors) to improve the employee experience.

In 2024, an employee came forward with an idea for a sabbatical policy to provide employees with additional time off to refresh, recharge, and pursue personal or professional development. She learned of a similar program at a public utility and, while the city found few examples of public sector sabbatical policies, the leadership team decided to conceptualize what such a program could look like. The sabbatical policy is intended to be part of the city’s comprehensive approach to employee benefits and is intended to promote employee well-being and support retention.

The policy will be implemented in January 2026 and provides additional time off on an incremental basis based on years of services. Employees are eligible for a three-week sabbatical at five years of service, a four-week sabbatical at 10 years of service, a five-week sabbatical at 15 years of service, and a six-week sabbatical at 20 years of service, as well as being eligible for a six-week sabbatical every five years thereafter. While not explicitly required, participating employees are encouraged to provide a brief report or reflection on their experiences upon returning from sabbatical.

Those who are eligible are required to complete an application form at least two months in advance of their selected sabbatical period to allow for sufficient time in business planning and continuity. Department directors are required to review the feasibility of maintaining operations during the employee’s absence and respond to the application within one month of submission. The application also requires the submittal of a “backfill plan,” identifying key responsibilities and projects as well as suggested strategies for covering duties during sabbaticals. Creating this plan is also intended to promote cross-training and resilient leadership by encouraging employees to receive training and learn new skills when covering for coworkers.

Throughout summer and fall 2025, the leadership team and human resources department worked with the management fellow in the city manager’s office to fine-tune the policy and develop a strategy to implement it in early 2026. The leadership team wished to ensure that, in the first year of the program, employees who may be in between milestones would still be able to participate in the program. Per the terms of the policy, employees who are in between milestones during the first year of policy implementation can either take a sabbatical based on their most recent eligibility milestone and then take another sabbatical five years into the future, or stay on the five-year schedule and wait to use their sabbatical until they reach the next milestone date.

City leadership incrementally provided information to employees, primarily through routine all-hands meetings, on the development and implementation of the program. Before the official launch of the program, the human resources and communications teams will work together to build out an intranet page with detailed information on the program and the application. After the first year of the program, city leadership will collect feedback from employees who participated in sabbaticals, as well as their coworkers, to better understand how the program could be modified to meet identified goals while minimizing the impact on others in the organization.

Like other benefits offered by the city, the leadership team hopes that the sabbatical policy will be a low-cost, innovative way of providing high-quality benefits to employees to recognize their years of service and contributions to the organization.

TIM DODD is deputy city manager of Englewood, Colorado, USA.