Many businesses will have employees with caring responsibilities in their workforce, but not all businesses are aware of the statutory right to take unpaid Carer’s Leave. Knowing what the right is and who is eligible for it can help your business to deal with any request promptly and appropriately. So, what does your business need to know?
- What is the right?
- Who can take it?
- How is it taken?
- Can an employer postpone Carer’s Leave?
- Can an employee be dismissed for requesting Carer’s Leave?
1. What is the right?
Carer’s Leave is a day one right that enables an employee who has a dependant with a long-term care need to take one week’s unpaid leave to provide or arrange care in each rolling 12-month period.
2. Who can take exercise it?
Someone is a dependant for the purposes of Carer’s Leave if they are a spouse, civil partner, child or parent of the employee or they live in the same household as the employee (and they are not their boarder, lodger or tenant) and they reasonably rely on the employee to provide or arrange care. A dependant has a long-term care need if they have an illness or injury (whether physical or mental) that requires, or is likely to require, care for more than three months or they have a disability for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010 or they require care for a reason connected with their old age.
3. How is it taken?
Carer’s Leave may be taken in either individual days or half days, up to a block of one working week for that employee. The leave doesn’t need to be used on consecutive days.
If an employee wishes to take carer’s leave, they should usually give you notice of this. Notice is either twice as many days’ notice as the period of leave the employee is requesting, or three days, whichever is the longest.
4. Can an employer postpone Carer’s Leave?
Businesses can, in certain circumstances, postpone an employee’s requested Carer’s Leave. If you are thinking about doing so bear in mind that, amongst other things, you must be able to show that you reasonably consider that the operation of the business would be unduly disrupted if you allowed the leave during the requested period. It’s important to be aware that even where that is the case, the leave cannot be refused – only postponed. As you may expect, the law sets out steps that employers must take where leave is to be postponed and requirements around timing. If you are considering postponing a period of Carer’s Leave in your business, please get in touch for advice before acting, and do so as soon as possible as timescales for postponement can be tight.
5. Can an employee be dismissed for requesting Carer’s Leave?
Not safely, it’s automatically unfair to dismiss an employee in connection with Carer’s Leave. Even short serving employees have this protection.
Employee’s also have protection from being subject to a detriment, such as disciplinary action or denial of promotion, because they have taken, or sought to take or made use of the benefits of, Carer’s Leave (or you believed they were likely to take Carer’s Leave).
If you receive a request for Carer’s Leave or you need further information on this area, please get in touch. Looking for a Carer’s Leave request form your employees can use? Please let us know as we have one available.
If you have a HR matter you would like assistance with, please reach out as we are here to help.