Post by leunas on Jan 16, 2007 4:30:16 GMT -5
Introduction
The sabbatical has been used by the Academic community with great success. Tenured professors with a five to seven year term of service have been taking sabbaticals for years. In fact, the sabbatical goes back to biblical times when Hebrew law stated every seventh year to be a sabbatical year. Fields were to be left untilled and people serving as slaves were to be set free. There is an interesting similarity to our industry in that some feel like slaves and others need to leave their career's fallow to get rejuvenated. Could the sabbatical be beneficial to the Game Development Industry, and could that sabbatical be accomplished at an Academic Institution?
What is a sabbatical? Simply, it is a career break or hiatus. Why should we evaluate sabbaticals in the Game Development Industry? Studies do show that career breaks are beneficial.
It is not just workers who benefit from a break with routine: research conducted by the Journal of Education for Business, a US academic journal, found that the benefits of sabbaticals outweigh the costs when the process is well-managed.
Employees return from breaks more committed and engaged with their jobs. And staff retention increases substantially - in fact, researchers found that virtually no employees were poached within three years of taking a sabbatical.
One of the biggest proponents of the corporate sabbatical is chip manufacturer Intel. Since 1991, the company has offered all full-time staff a paid eight-week break after seven years - with additional breaks every seven years subsequently. The firm reports that one in every 20 employees takes a sabbatical in any given year - a total of more than 4,000 employees.
Sally Whittle, Computing Business 23 Nov 2006
Hiatus
Could a small hiatus from the pressures after crunch help retain, rejuvenate or reinvigorate a game developer and keep them from burn-out? What if that "time off" was a sabbatical at an Academic institution? Could it help keep a valued game developer from leaving the industry? Would the institution garner any benefits from this exchange?
It is not a secret that there is a retention issue in our industry. The IGDA confirmed this in the Quality of Life White Paper.
The loss of talent and experience for the industry as a whole can only be described as crippling; time and time again, studios unable to hire sufficient numbers of seasoned professionals are forced to push junior employees into roles for which they aren't ready, with predictable results on schedules, crunches, and profitability.
This claim is supported by the following statistics from the IGDA Quality of Life Survey.
- 34.3% of developers expect to leave the industry within 5 years, and 51.2% within 10 years.
- Only 3.4% said that their coworkers averaged 10 or more years of experience.
- Crunch time is omnipresent, during which respondents work 65 to 80 hours a week (35.2%). The average crunch work week exceeds 80 hours (13%). Overtime is often uncompensated (46.8%).
One of the suggestions from the IGDA's Quality of Life White paper endorses time away from the studio as a guideline for maintaining the mental and physical health of game developers:
Care should be taken to plan accordingly, so that development team members (and their families) get a chance to recuperate after crunch...
Awarding extra time off (or "comp time") at the end of a project to a stressed, overworked team can reap big dividends in team morale and satisfaction.
For several years Full Sail has attempted to expose our students to the industry by bringing in a game developer once a month to meet with them. Our objectives for doing this were purely self-centered; we wanted our students to benefit from the interaction, to walk away invigorated and energized. After several months of speakers, we began to realize that the interaction was not just in one direction, but rather, a two-way exchange-an exchange that not only benefited our students, but was also having a tremendous effect on our guests. The passion and drive of the students re-invigorated and re-energized them. The interaction between students and Game Developer's was having as much of a personal effect on them as it was for the students.
The samples below represent some of the feedback received from speakers/guests who have been impacted by the students or have responded to this proposal.
Comments
"To come to Full Sail and spend time with the dedicated staff and motivated students is, for me, one of the highlights of my year. It's easy to get jaded about our industry when you're hip-deep in a project. The opportunity to interact with people truly passionate about what they're doing and where they want to go is invigorating. Sometimes I feel like I get more out of the exchange than the students do. I wouldn't trade it for the world." - Tim Huntsman
"...I think having faculty on-site to help with a project, or traveling to Full Sail to work with students for a period of time is a great idea on both fronts. I will bring it up to our programming lead and HR staff." - Bryant Freitag
"Every time I visit Full Sail and speak with the students, it's an enormously reinvigorating experience. I am constantly reminded of what it was like when I was trying to get into the industry and what it was like when we were having to figure just about everything out the hard way." - Billy Cain
"...I have raised the possibility of guest speaker and teaching opportunities with my boss, because I do think it could offer benefits for us as well as for Full Sail." - Robert Trevellyan
"I love the enthusiasm that the students radiate, the energy they demonstrate invigorates me, it's why I love writing games, why I love helping Full Sail. I swear that I see in one class more creativity and drive than I do in some companies. Two days at Full Sail makes me pumped to go back to the office and really put that little extra into my own work." - Andi Smithers
"I THINK THIS IS A FANTASTIC IDEA!!! I will follow up w/my people about this." - Designer
The positive response made me realize there was a real opportunity for a "win win" relationship between Academia and Industry. A sabbatical at an educational institution, offering a game development degree program, could not only help keep an Industry Professional from burn-out but also give students access to someone in the industry. The traditional six month to a year sabbatical is not feasible for the game industry because of the time constraints. How could we (Academia and Industry) make this happen and ensure its success?
Kenneth J. Zahorski, of St. Norbert College says, time off alone doesn't a sabbatical make. And, he has three components that differentiate a sabbatical from a simple leave.
- a sabbatical has a purpose
- a sabbatical is paid leave
- the tenured staff-member must have a period of prior service with his or her institution
Kenneth J. Zahorski in The Sabbatical Mentor: A Practical Guide to Successful Sabbaticals (1994)
Following these three principles, our purpose is simple: mentor the development of young minds by contributing to their education at an academic institution. How this is implemented should be left to the institution based on their current academic program of study. But, suffice it to say, a plan should be developed for the time they are there. At Full Sail, we have involved our guests with the final projects occurring at the time with great success. Some of the groups have even stayed in touch with their mentor.
The paid leave is where the sabbatical becomes a sticky subject. I can hardly see a studio agreeing to a six month paid leave. But, based on our experience, a two to five day sabbatical has had the desired impact. The issue now is when would or could a studio let a member of staff take a leave. It appears that time is available at the end of a project.
Often, there is a period of limbo at the end of a project, when the gold master (GM) candidate has been submitted to the publisher but has not yet been approved for manufacture. If the project contract provides for funding through gold master acceptance, and not just through submission, this period of time can serve to let most of the team rest offsite without impacting profitability.
IGDA, Quality of Life White Paper
If given this time, it's highly unlikely an employee would want to go straight to a school, but a couple days spent at an institution right before returning would have beneficial results. Having spent time with passionate students, game developers can return to start a new project reinvigorated.'
For Success
For this program to be successful, I would have to agree with Zahorski, and only offer it to a staff member with at least four to five years of service. Statistics show that it is around five years when game developers begin to burn out and loose their passion. With this tenure, the developer is a valued employee not only from the studios viewpoint but also Academia. They are seasoned professionals, entrenched with teams and would leave a vacuum if the studio couldn't retain them.
Could "time off" at an academic institution help keep a valued game developer from leaving the industry and provide a benefit to the students? Research does show that breaks do help retention. And, even though formal research has not been conducted, the data from those game developers that have participated in our speaker program does indicate the results to be very positive. If the "time off" at an institution has an objective, pays the employee for the time, involves a time frame acceptable to the studio and is given to tenured employees; industry sabbaticals would be beneficial at an academic institution. They would not only benefit game developers, but provide the academic institution with a real personality from the industry.
Conclusion
The question now is for the Studio Human Resource departments, what is your opinion on a studio sending an employee on the verge of burn out to a school (any school) for a small sabbatical? We have seen how invigorating it is for our guests to be surrounded by the passion of students. This could help the studio retain someone ready to leave and also contribute to the program at the school. Could this be a two way street, could a school send a faculty member to a studio for a sabbatical? I know there are a lot of questions left to be answered, but what do you think about the possibility? Would you pose the question to your HR department?
www.gamecareerguide.com/features/326/the_academic_word_industry_.php