Employers have a moral and legal obligation to protect the health and wellbeing of their workers — and that includes giving them time to rest and disconnect from work.
Employers are legally required to provide employees with a certain level of time off work, which varies depending on the reasons for the absence. They’re also accountable for negotiating pay, the length of the leave, and any reasonable accommodations needed in relation to their absence — including covering workloads and managing for their return. Some of these decisions are entirely up to the employer, while others are legally regulated. It’s important for employers to fully understand these regulatory requirements, as well as the employee expectations that are influencing future changes to the legal landscape.
In this article, we outline the various reasons employees may request time off work, and how employers should manage their workforces in the US.
Reasons for taking time off work
Employees may request time off work for many different reasons. The type of leave often dictates the length of time they’ll be away from work, as well as what accommodations their employer must make. Here’s a short breakdown of the most common:
Holiday/Vacation
Employees are entitled to a minimum amount of paid annual leave, dictated by the company in the employee contract. The minimum amount of leave an employee is entitled to is also regulatorily controlled — different countries have different standard minimums. In the US, this is dictated at the state level, as there’s no federal minimum.
Employees may choose to use their annual leave entitlement for holidays/vacations and days off work.
Sickness or injury
An employer can dictate the amount of sick leave their employees are allocated each year. Like annual leave, this is also different by country — in the US, employees can accrue sick days, as they earn one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 working hours.
Employees can take sick leave if they’re unwell or injured. Sick leave usually begins as paid leave, but if the employee needs to take more time off than they’ve accumulated as allowance, any further pay will need to be discussed.
Medical appointments aren’t usually covered by sick leave, so employees usually need to use their annual leave to do so.
If an employee is disabled or suffering from a long-term health condition, employers must make “reasonable accommodations” related to the disability. If they refuse, they could be sued for discrimination.
Childbirth and adoption
If an employee is expecting a baby or planning an adoption, they’re usually entitled to parental leave when they give birth or adopt a child. The length of this leave, and how much of it is paid, should be written into the employment contract, or discussed between the employee and employer if it’s not contractually defined.
Paternity leave tends to be shorter than maternity leave, but new parents can also opt to take unpaid parental leave. Some companies, like Smirnoff, Baileys, Guinness, Diageo, Aviva, and Investec have started to create more parental leave balance by offering equal paternity and maternity leave.
Caring for a ‘dependent’ or grieving a loss
Employees who have someone dependent on them — such as a child, partner, elderly parent, or disabled family member — are typically offered unpaid leave, unless their contract states differently. Employers should have policies in place to address time-off requests which may not fall under contracted allowance.
In the event of a loss, employers can offer bereavement pay, but this isn’t mandatory. Employees usually have to approach their employer with a reasonable timeframe and understand the leave will be unpaid unless agreed differently.
There’s a different law in place for when an employee’s child passes away.
Jury duty
Employers must agree to time off work for any employee called for jury duty. Though a mandatory service, employees aren’t usually paid for this time off, but they can claim back lost earnings from missed days at work from the courts.
Career breaks, sabbaticals, or study time
Employees may request leave for a temporary break to focus on something else. The length of the leave, and any remuneration, is up for negotiation between the employer and employee.
Though these are considered valid reasons for taking time off work, employers don’t have to accept or agree to all of them. Employees have a right to take time off under certain circumstances — referred to as ‘statutory rights’ — but an employment contract should break down and clearly state the extent of paid or unpaid leave allowances.
Finding a balance between law and compassion
Employers need to know their legal obligations when it comes to employee leave and time off from work, but there are also many situations which fall outside mandatory regulations. In these cases, employers have a ‘duty of care’ to protect their employees’ wellbeing.
Mental health is now being prioritized — not only in public conversation, but also in regulation and legislation. It’s therefore becoming more important that employers are aware of how they treat their workers and the impact it can have on their mental wellbeing.
Concepts such as “mental health days”, “unhappiness leave”, or “wellness days” have become popular online, with many employers starting to offer employees an allocation of days to take off when they’re feeling unhappy or overwhelmed and need to “decompress”.
In one example from China, a supermarket allows staff to claim up to 10 “unhappy days”. These are in addition to their normal sick leave and holiday entitlement. The theory behind these additional mental wellbeing days is that they encourage more transparent communication between employers and employees, aiding the wellbeing of overworked employees.
Rights to disconnect
To avoid burnout and promote a healthier work-life balance, many European countries have initiated a “right to disconnect” policy, where managers are prohibited from contacting their employees outside their working hours.
In 2016, France passed the right to disconnect, prompting Italy to follow in 2017, Spain in 2018, and Ireland in 2021.
From 2022, 65,000 workers in Belgium have been given this right, though there’s an exception if “unforeseen circumstances [requiring] action cannot wait until the next working period.” The rule also ensures employees can’t be punished or treated negatively for not answering calls or messages outside standard working hours.
Similarly, Portugal passed the Portuguese Labor Code, stating “employers have the duty to refrain from contacting workers during their rest period, except in situations of force majeure.” If a manager breaches the policy, they could face severe fines.
Grieving a loss
Officially, there’s no law for providing time off from work for grieving the loss of a spouse, family member, or friend. it could be helpful for employers to include a bereavement policy in employment contracts, dictating the type and amount of leave employees will be entitled to in these difficult circumstances.
Regardless, employers should be compassionate and understanding to any reasonable requests for time off following a family death.
Protecting employees in the workplace
Businesses can’t continue to prosper without the good health and wellbeing of their workers, and the “right to rest” initiative is moving from a nice-to-have expectation to a topic covered by mandatory regulations.
Alongside adhering to the current regulations around leave for vacations, sickness, bereavement, and parental requirements, companies must keep a keen eye on the quickly progressing regulations regarding rights to disconnect.
Staying ahead of such regulatory topics requires ready access to the latest updates and expert insights, so you can understand what’s relevant to your business. With RegScan, you can ensure your teams have the right information to remain compliant, as well as stay abridged of the regulatory changes on the horizon.