Redundancy Threat: How Much Paid Time Off to Seek Work?
Q.Our manager, who is handling current redundancy procedures at our company, seems to think that, "reasonable time off to look for work during the notice period" is something determined by him, and the employer.
When I put it to him, that by law, we are entitled to 2 fifths of the working week with pay, ie 2 days paid time off, during the whole of the notice period, he is claiming that I am wrong, and that the time off is at the employer's discretion. He says that they would allow possibly 2 half days.
Who is right? I believe we are also entitled to unpaid time off as well, albeit a reasonable amount.
A.
It is always frustrating when your employer is refusing to give you something that you believe you are entitled to. Whether they are doing it to be awkward or just because they misunderstand, it can be difficult to sort out the situation between you. In the case that you are querying, about time off during a redundancy notice period, you and your boss are both right in certain ways.
The law says, as you have rightly pointed out, that employees are entitled to ‘reasonable time off to look for work during the notice period’. This law is in place to give employees a chance to attend interviews, visit colleges for further study or use their time to look for future work opportunities for when their notice period ends.
The amount of time that you are referring to – 2 fifths of the working week – is mentioned in this legislation and is considered to be a reasonable amount of time to allocate during a 12 week period. However, this amount of time is not a strict ruling, as you would probably like it to be but more of a suggestion that can be upheld.
Firstly, an employee is only entitled to any time off to look for work if they have been with their employer continuously for at least two years. Secondly, the amount of time is indeed, as you employer says, at their discretion. The reason that the 2 days’ paid leave is stated is because this is the most amount of compensation that an employee can be awarded if they take their employer to a tribunal about the matter.
This does not mean that your employer has to give you this amount of time off. What it means is that if you decide they are being unreasonable and take the matter further then a court can award you up to two days’ pay for your lack of time off. Usually this translates into employers using the two days as a benchmark so that they do not have any such problems, but by law, as long as they take reasonable consideration, they do not have to give you the time in the first instance.
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