Allowing time off work

Introduction

Your staff may request time off for a range of reasons, eg because of illness, to assist a family member, to go on holiday, do jury and magistrate service or undertake trade union duties.

Some of these activities, notably public and trade union duties and parental/dependant responsibilities, carry statutory rights to time off, ie your employees have a legal right to the time off and you can't refuse.

In other situations, you can choose how you handle requests for time off.

This guide looks at situations where an employee - or other type of worker - has the legal right to request time off - with or without pay.

It also suggests ways of dealing with requests for time off work where an employee - or other type of worker - has no legal right to take it.

Subjects covered in this guide

• Introduction
• Time off - paid or unpaid
• Time off for information and consultation purposes
• Time off for certain training and job-related duties and activities
• Statutory time off for parental reasons
• Time off for personal commitments and emergencies
• Time off for public service and duties
• Time off for magistrate duty
• Employees in the armed forces
• Managing your staff's time off
• Here's how we support our people who require time off work for public duties

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