Right to Request Time off for Training
The right to request time off for training takes effect on 6th April for organisations with 250 staff or more – this will be extended to all employers from 6th April 2011.
Employees with 26 weeks service or more will have a right to request time off work to undertake study or training to improve their effectiveness at work and the performance of their employer’s business.
The request can be for any amount of time and the training can be accredited or not. The training or study can take place at a college or by any other means, such as on-line or through an open learning route – it can be with or without supervision.
Importantly, time take off using this route is unpaid, although of course employers may chose to pay and that may be a good investment.
Insofar as process is concerned, the right will work very similarly to the right to request flexible working up to and including an appeals procedure. Only one application can be made in a 12 month period and employees are protected from detriment for making an application. Dismissal of an employee that can be shown to be because an employee made an application will be automatically unfair.
Employers must give serious consideration to all requests and respond in a reasonable time. However, they are at liberty to refuse a request for sound business reasons or if, in their view, the training would not improve the employee’s effectiveness at work or the performance of their business.
Employees can make a complaint to Employment Tribunal if an employer fails to consider the application properly. If the Tribunal finds in favour of the employee it can make an order for the employer to reconsider the application or make an award of compensation that is “just an equitable”. The compensation is capped at 8 weeks “statutory” pay which is currently £380 per week.
We think it will be interesting to watch how this plays out over the coming months. Good employers already provide training for their staff but, of course, if it is at the employers’ behest that training time must be paid. Will we see unscrupulous employers “persuading” staff to apply under this new right in order that they don’t have to pay their employees for getting the skills they need to do the job or to gain promotion ? And, of course, those low pay employees who perhaps need literacy training will not be able to afford to apply under this scheme so in some ways it will miss its target.
There are also some interesting ‘questions’ to be answered. If an employee is studying or training in a job relating skill – and the employer will have agreed that it is a job related skill by granting the time off – then does the time spent studying or training become work related and fall under the Working Time Regulations ? And if so, given that it is unpaid, does the hours:pay calculation keep the employer within the parameters set by the National Minimum Wage ?
Time and the Courts will give us the answers to these questions but in the meantime employers need to think this through very carefully, there are potential elephant traps whichever way they jump !
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