Do employees have the right to take time off work?
Under what circumstances are employees allowed time off work?
Does a fellow worker have the right to time off to act as a companion at a disciplinary or grievance hearing?
What rights do employees who are under notice of redundancy have to take time off work?
Is a redundant employee who has turned down an offer of suitable alternative employment still entitled to paid time off to look for other employment?
Is a redundant employee still entitled to reasonable paid time off to look for other employment while undertaking a trial period of alternative employment?
Are employees legally entitled to take time off work to attend training courses?
Young persons are entitled to time off work for study if they have not achieved prescribed standards of achievement, but what are these prescribed standards?
Apart from young workers are any other workers legally entitled to time off for training?
Is an employer obliged to pay an employee for time off for fertility treatment?
Will an employee who takes time off for fertility treatment be entitled to statutory or contractual sick pay?
Fertility treatment is not
a "deemed incapacity" for statutory sick pay purposes. However, the treatment
can affect people in different ways. An employee may well be ill due to the
treatment, for example through depression or stress. If this is the case, it is
up to the employer whether or not to accept the incapacity as stated on any
medical certificate or form, in order to consider statutory sick pay
entitlement.
There is no statutory right for an employee to receive time
off, with or without pay, during normal working hours in order to undertake a
course of fertility treatment. The maternity pay and rights legislation relates
solely to an employee being pregnant and not to the causes of pregnancy.
The Health and Safety Executive recommends that women should be
given a reasonable number of paid or unpaid days' absence towards any fertility
treatment. Women generally require more treatment for in vitro fertilisation
(IVF) than men do for fertility treatment, so they are more likely to incur
absences from the workplace to undergo IVF. An employer could be exposed to an
indirect discrimination claim if its rules on sickness absence adversely affect
a woman undergoing treatment.
Employers must state in the written particulars of employment
(s.1 of the Employment Rights Act 1996) whether they offer sick pay and, if so,
on what terms. It is advisable to include the terms in a separate sickness
policy, which should cover the majority of eventualities, including fertility
treatment. This will then form part of the contractual arrangement determining
whether and, if so, how much contractual sick pay is payable to an employee.
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Can an employer insist that a part-time employee arrange all her antenatal appointments for times when she is not working?
Do employees have a right to time off to attend doctor or dentist appointments?
If an employee goes abroad for treatment will he or she still be entitled to receive statutory sick pay?
Is the spouse or partner of a pregnant woman entitled to paid time off work to attend scans and other antenatal appointments?
Do employees have a statutory right to time off work prior to the commencement of adoption leave to attend placement meetings?
Is an employer required to pay employees who cannot make it into work because of severe weather conditions?
Is an employer required to permit its employees to go on jury service?
Where an employer considers that having a particular employee go on jury service would injure its business, can it approach the court directly to request a deferral?
Do employees have a statutory right to be paid while on jury service?