Allowing time off work

Time off - paid or unpaid

By law, you must give every employee paid annual leave of at least four weeks. This can include Bank Holidays and public holidays.

There are regulations surrounding time off for other reasons.

A statutory requirement means that you are required by law to agree to the request for time off. If it is discretionary, you can decide whether to accept or reject the request. It is a good idea to have a clear, non-discriminatory policy on discretionary requests. This should appear within the employee's contract of employment or in the staff handbook.

To discover whether you are legally obliged to pay an employee for time off, see our table of reasons which employees may give for time off.

See the page in this guide on statutory time off for parental reasons for conditions governing paid and unpaid maternity, paternity and adoption leave, or see the page in this guide on time off for public service and duties for a definition of public duties.

For information on holidays see our guide on how to know how much holiday to give your staff.

Subjects covered in this guide

• Introduction
• Time off - paid or unpaid
• Job-related time off
• Other work-related reasons for time off
• Statutory time off for parental reasons
• Time off for personal commitments and emergencies
• Time off for public service and duties
• Employees and the armed forces
• Managing your staff's time off