Should I tell HR the real reason I'm asking for unpaid leave?

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

I applied to attend a 10 day silent meditation retreat at the end of March/beginning of April this year and my application was accepted. My plan is to take those days off as unpaid leave.

For href="https://forum.tuteehub.com/tag/context">context, I work at a research company with 2800+ employees worldwide, based in the US. The company is pretty good about promoting a healthy work-life balance and usually provides a good deal of flexibility.

Now, my question is: Should I tell HR that I'm going to a meditation retreat? Self-exploration may not be seen as a "good enough" reason for taking time off in corporate America. Would it be better to come up with another excuse?

manpreet 2 years ago

Should I tell HR that I'm going to a meditation retreat? Self-exploration may not be seen as a "good enough" reason for taking time off in corporate America. Would it be better to come up with another excuse?

You are taking a vacation.

Assuming you are normally permitted to take unpaid time off when desired, there's absolutely no reason HR needs to know what you plan to do during that vacation. In a company of 2800+, they have far bigger issues to worry about.

There's no need to come up with any excuse. "Taking an unpaid vacation" is all anyone needs to know.

If taking unpaid leave would require an exception to normal processes, you can still indicate that these 10 days are vacation time (they are). You'll have to judge for yourself if more justification is needed in order to secure the exception. If more justification is required, then just be completely transparent and explain about the retreat.

In companies where I have worked, unpaid leave must be approved by a manager before it is granted. If that's the case in your company, next time get your manager's approval before applying to a retreat. And in that case, HR will seldom care at all as long as a manager has approved.