Survey of leave entitlement

PAY DATA

A third of companies offer employees guaranteed or discretionary paid leave to get married while four in ten give paid time off for moving house, according to a survey of UK organisations by Mercer Human Resource Consulting.

The 250-company survey found that on average, in addition to normal holiday entitlement, staff are given two days' leave for marriage and one day to move house.

Leave for family emergencies

More prevalent is additional paid leave for family emergencies:

56% of the companies surveyed give guaranteed time off for a death in the family while the rest (44%) operate their policy on a discretionary basis
in cases of serious family illness, 20% of companies provide paid leave automatically and 55% do so at management's discretion
in both instances of family emergencies, employees are entitled to up to five days off work.

David Wreford, European principal at Mercer, said: "Companies are only legally obliged to offer unpaid leave for family emergencies. Generous entitlements are often used as a retention tool and to show staff the firm is willing to be flexible."

Other key survey results

Sabbaticals: 6% of respondents allow staff to take time off to go on a sabbatical.
Holidays: The average holiday entitlement ranges from 23 to 25 days a year, depending on employee level.
Service-related entitlement: 67% of organisations offer extra entitlement based on years of service.

A final word

"Rewarding service with extra holiday is a traditional approach that appears to be declining in popularity. More employers are now realising that long service doesn't necessarily equate with enhanced performance. Given the government's intention to outlaw age discrimination from 2006, it's possible that benefits related solely to length of service, such as extra holiday, will be regarded as indirectly discriminatory and unlawful." - David Wreford, European principal, Mercer Human Resource Consulting.

Want to know more?

Data was collected at the end of December 2002 as part of Mercer's Trebase survey of company benefits. Contact Mercer in London for more details tel: 0207 7488 4949.

Mercer Human Resource Consulting "helps organisations create measurable business results through their people". It has more than 13,000 employees in 40 countries worldwide. www.mercerhr.com

Posted 1 April 2003