Olesya Holker in her home. (Photo: Olesya Holker)
By Steve Dinnen
Workplace sabbaticals are not common in Iowa or even the United States. But they happen. For weeks, or maybe months, an employee who signs up for one takes leaves of the workplace to recharge his or her batteries, take stock in life, maybe take some professional seminars or perhaps just sit on a beach, if that’s in the cards. For Olesya Holker, it was a little bit of all of this.
Holker lives in Cumming, had a decent job at Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield and was rising through its ranks. She rotated through several jobs and spent eight-plus years in audits and risk management. Appointed to the company’s inclusion council, she struck upon the idea of making a short video, for internal use, about talent development.
“I was passionate about employee well-being,” she said. The video morphed into an independent project, and she recruited her sister, Sophie Vlasova, to come from Russia and help produce “The Truth About Happiness and Well-Being,” an award-winning documentary that debuted on Amazon in 2022.
This was not exactly in a risk management slot, and in mid-2023, Holker decided to request a sabbatical so she could take time to assess her life. “It gave me time to reflect on what brings me joy,” Holker said. “Sometimes we forget. We’re on autopilot.”
Take your time, said Wellmark, which gave her 6 months away. Holker eased into her sabbatical with a true vacation. She went to a bachelorette party in Mexico, then a wedding in Texas. She welcomed her mother, the Russian stage and screen actress Olga Khokhlova, to Iowa and together they visited Branson, Missouri.
Holker joined the Des Moines Storytellers Project last June and talked about her upbringing in Siberia and her travels to Turkey and Las Vegas (where she met Jered Holker, a Des Moines-area home contractor who proposed to her two days after they met). She also joined the Association for Talent Development and is now vice president of operations for its Iowa chapter.
In Holker’s case, the enlightenment she earned through her sabbatical made her realize her passion did not lie with insurance audit services. So she parted ways with Wellmark and struck out on her own. “The sabbatical gave me the opportunity to get my head up and see what’s going on in Des Moines,” she said.
The Business Record recently honored Holker as part of this year’s Forty Under 40, and she is busier than ever. She is a business consultant for a major financial institution and is working on a second documentary film that dovetails with an inspirational book she is writing about finding life’s purpose.
“I know my ‘why,’ so every day is better for me,” she said.
So, yes, Wellmark lost a valued employee. But the community it supports will gain a coach for its mental and corporate well-being.
Sabbaticals can help clarify the big picture
Several years ago, my late wife, Barbara Dinnen, was quite vexed about her upcoming sabbatical because she didn’t know how she wanted to spend it even just a month before it began. She wanted to keep it religious — after all, she was an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church. So what about an archaeological dig in Jerusalem? Or working and praying alongside some nuns? Or maybe a Spanish immersion course in Mexico, since she worked with many Latinos at her church, Trinity Las Americas United Methodist Church in Des Moines?
She was pondering her situation as she walked along the Clive Greenbelt Trail when out of nowhere a man in a kilt strode up, playing a bagpipe. Honest. That afternoon, she booked a flight to Scotland, destined for a 12th-century monastery on the Isle of Iona. Iona was the birthplace of Christianity in Scotland, in the sixth century, and from there the word spread across Britain (her ancestral home). The tartan-clad bagpiper had jogged her memory that 1,500 years on, Iona was still a center for religious instruction and was hosting a religious retreat that very summer.
After an airplane, then a train, a bus, a ferry and finally a footpath, she found herself in the company of a dozen other clergy, all from England and all, to her surprise, lovers of Des Moines. It seems everyone had read a book or two by one of England’s favorite authors, the Des Moines native Bill Bryson. Over 10 days, they studied, prayed, worshiped together, dined together and even took a pint or two at the local pub.
Sabbaticals aim to enhance employee well-being, help them take care of their mental health, and recover from burnout. Iona was a roaring success for Rev. Dinnen, who returned home with a renewed vigor for her work, focused more and more on her congregation and even crafted better sermons.
“God, I love this job,” she said one day (taking care to address her real boss) after the Iona trip and yet another 12-hour workday.
The Methodist Church calls sabbaticals spiritual renewal leave. Maybe corporate America can take a cue and rebrand them the same way. A little more corporate spirit will benefit both employer and employee.
