I’m thinking, why would you refuse a month of unpaid leave to anyone at all? Surely hiring someone new is way more expensive and takes longer than a month.
If their work is isolated and can be paused while they're gone, it doesn't matter. Well, other than dropping productivity for that duration.
But for most of us, we're operating as part of a team. Our duties don't stop when we're gone. They have to be covered by someone else. If I'm disappearing for a month, the rest of the team will have to pick up the slack and do my job for me.
This might be okay if you're working on mythical man-month projects where the work can be redistributed and deadlines pushed back at will, but at most companies it just means everyone else has to work harder to cover.
If someone wants to come and go for months at a time, it's better to restructure their employment as a contractor and provide the work in contractor-sized blocks. Full-time employees are expected to make an effort to be available full-time for the team's sake (excluding emergencies and such)
You need to plan for this and it sets a precedent. This company has 4 employees; 25% of the whole workforce suddenly missing for a whole month is probably not easy to handle and definitely not something you want to establish as okay.
You’re assuming you’ll still have the employee if you refuse.
The point is that once you have no leverage over employees (because their livelihood doesn’t depend on the job), you cannot establish what is not or not okay on your own.
> You’re assuming you’ll still have the employee if you refuse.
If the employee quits, you're in this situation once (and you'd be in it anyway). If you allow it and set a precedent, you might end up in this situation far more often and with worse consequences if you decide to change your mind.
> The point is that once you have no leverage over employees [...], you cannot establish what is not or not okay on your own.
Sure you can. You just need to find people that are okay with what you're okay with (and the same thing in reverse, of course).
I don't think leverage works in this case either way. If you have employees that are willing to let you stand in the rain and sabotage your business [0], you need to find new ones anyway. Leverage only let's you avoid the inevitable for a small bit in exchange for burning a bridge.
[0] I'm not saying that this is necessary the case in OPs scenario, but it plausibly might be.
