Micro retirements: How temporary mental health leave can help long-term wellbeing

Awareness of mental health is shaping how a new generation is engaging with the workplace, and in some cases, is leading to micro retirements

Colin Keane of Níos Fearr Consulting enjoys time out at home with children Cliodhna and Ciara. Picture: Larry Cummins

This time last year, 46-year-old Colin Keane from Cork City was about to embark on a micro retirement.

Having spent 20-odd years working his way up to management level in the IT sector, he thought it was time for an extended break.

“I told my employer I was taking 12 months off work,” he says.

He had been thinking about it for a while. He and his wife Ann Marie have three young children. They both worked full time, and life was busy.

“What with us working, the kids going to school, homework, and after-school activities, the pace was relentless and intense. I’d work hard in the office and go from that stressful role to another stressful role at home, hurrying to get dinner on the table and bags packed and prepared for everything everyone had to do the following day. I was constantly rushing from one thing to the next.”

Something had to give. So he and his wife considered their options. She stepped away from her job at one point but soon realised that being a full-time stay-at-home mother didn’t meet her needs or the family’s financial needs.

“Then I tried taking one day’s parental leave a week,” says Keane. “But that wasn’t enough.”

His employer offered him part-time hours, but he didn’t think that was the solution.

“I’d heard Dr Rangan Chatterjee on his podcast talking about how people on their deathbeds never wish they’d worked more, and that stuck in my mind,” he says. “I decided I needed time out from work to step back and think about what I wanted from my life. I never had the chance to do that when I was working full time and dealing with the kids at home. We had some savings. My wife would continue working. Taking extended time off was financially possible. So I took a micro retirement.”

Finding the right work-life balance

Keane isn’t alone in deciding to take time out. Micro retirement is a trend in specific sectors of the workforce, according to Sarah Kieran, an associate professor in work and employment studies at the University of Limerick and founder of the Work Futures Lab.

“The people we are talking about here are those who are well educated and gainfully employed,” she says. “They are in the privileged position of being able to ask themselves what they want from their work and their lives.”

Sarah Kieran: People are asking if hard graft in the workplace is worth it.

Research by Kieran and her colleagues at the Work Futures Lab highlights the importance of work-life balance. They interviewed more than 550 professionals and found that 27% weren’t willing to sacrifice their lives outside of work for career advancement. This finding ties in with international studies. A 2022 Gallup report indicated that 65% of gen Z and millennials placed greater importance on work-life balance and wellbeing than previous generations and were unwilling to allow their careers to impact them negatively.

“People in their 20s, 30s, and 40s are asking themselves if the hard graft is worth it in terms of the price they pay in their home and family life and wellbeing,” says Kieran. “Many are deciding it’s not, and are taking the likes of micro retirements to bring greater balance into their lives.”

She believes several factors are driving this trend. One is the growing emphasis placed on mental health.

“For the past 20 years, there’s been a concerted effort to raise and educate children to be more conscious of their mental wellbeing,” she says. “These children are now adults and are making choices that reflect this. This could be why they are choosing to take regular breaks from the pressurised world of work to recharge.”

What Kieran calls “techno stress” may also have a role to play.

“Modern technology means we’re always on and someone is always looking for us,” she says. 

When was the last time you opened your laptop and had no emails to read? That constant sense of struggling to catch up is exhausting and could make people feel they need a break.

The increased focus on the importance of family life is another significant factor.

“The average age of people in our study was 46, and they stated that any decisions they made wouldn’t just impact them but also their entire family,” says Kieran.

“While the extra money associated with extra work or responsibility in a job would be great, the sacrifice involved for the whole family might not be worth it.”

Kieran believes the current economic climate allows people to think and act this way. “People who are well educated know that it will be easy for them to find another job when they decide to return to work,” she says. “If the employment level wasn’t so high, they might be less likely to consider micro retirement.”

The three Ps

Workplace psychologist Mary Collins: Micro retirement can refresh employees.

Mary Collins is a chartered workplace psychologist and senior coach practitioner whose main interest is the intergenerational workforce. She sees the micro retirement trend as a result of “the three Ps”.

There’s parenting. “Young people have seen their parents devoting years of their lives to working long hours and maybe even burning themselves out in the process. They see them approaching retirement and in some cases, not being fit or healthy enough to enjoy it. They want to avoid these problems for themselves.”

There’s the pandemic. “The uncertainty of living through that period had a profound impact. It taught us that nobody knows what’s around the corner, so we may as well make the most of life. Young people, in particular, are reacting with a carpe diem approach to life and their careers. They want to seize whatever opportunities are available to them.”

Then there’s personal wellbeing. “That, along with flexibility, is the real priority of younger generations. They want more out of life than just work.”

Collins acknowledges that this mentality can have drawbacks. Time out is time not spent advancing up the ranks, winning promotions, and receiving pay raises.

But this doesn’t have to be the case. “Many people expand their learning, development and creativity during their time out of the workplace and gain transferrable skills in the process,” says Collins. 

They return to the workplace feeling refreshed and with more to give.

Rather than scoffing at the trend and denigrating those who take micro retirements as flaky or lazy, Kieran says organisations would do well to adapt to people’s changing needs.

“Organisations should ask themselves if progression in the workplace really requires working long hours and making big sacrifices,” she says.

“Over a career, there will be stages when many people need to step back, maybe when children are young or parents are old or maybe when they simply need a mental break from work. A sustainable business is one where people are well, do their jobs well, and the finances of the firm are in good health. By working together and having an ongoing conversation — which can include topics like micro retirement, flexible working practices and more — employers and their employees can ensure that happens.”

Colin Keane of Níos Fearr Consulting at home. Picture: Larry Cummins

As Keane approaches the end of his 12 months of micro retirement, he reports that it’s given him a whole new outlook on life.

“It was only when I took my foot off the pedal that I realised what life could be like without the all-consuming intensity of my job,” he says.

The experience made him realise he didn’t want to return to full-time work. Instead, he is now offering consultancy services as Níos Fearr Consulting.

“I’m aiming to work 20 to 30 hours a week while the kids are at school,” he says. “My micro retirement taught me that I needed work to be flexible enough to fit around family life.”