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Employers' Guide: Leave of Absence

Employers’ Guide: Leave of Absence

Jan 29, 2025

Running a business in the UK comes with a wide range of legal obligations, including health and safety and employment law. Depending on the scale of your business, the job of ensuring legal compliance with UK employment law may fall to you as the business owner, or you may delegate this to a human resources (HR) specialist or team. One of the key tasks that must be understood and managed if you have employees is ‘leave of absence’. In this article, we will explain all you need to know about leave of absence in the UK, including what absence of leave is, how to manage leave and absence, short-term time off, long-term leave of absence, and unpaid leave.

Understanding absence management

Absence management is a key aspect of employing staff in the UK as it ensures that you have a record of the absences of each member of staff and that you are applying the law correctly in each case. Many businesses use dedicated HR and payroll software to correctly manage the absence of staff members and to keep records to show that the correct law has been applied.

Understanding absence management and the law in the UK

As an employer in the UK, there are several laws that you must abide by when it comes to managing the absence of your staff, including:

  • The Employment Rights Act 1996
  • The Equality Act 2010
  • The Data Protection Act 1998, and
  • The Working Time Regulations.

Managing absence at work

Absence management is more than just keeping records of when a person is absent and how much they should be paid. You will need to ensure that all related areas of law are considered when it comes to absence. For example, the working time regulations determine how long staff can work, while the Equality Act sets out how staff must be treated equally. A member of staff with a disability may need additional time off work, for example.

What are the legitimate reasons for leave of absence?

Employees may need to take a leave of absence for a number of valid reasons, including

  • To attend a medical appointment
  • Sudden illness
  • Bereavement of an immediate family member
  • An emergency
  • Personal problems
  • Maternity leave/paternity leave
  • Caring for an immediate family member (e.g. a child), and
  • To attend jury service.

These legitimate reasons for leave of absence should be made clear within the employment contract and an HR handbook.

Long-term leave of absence   

An employee may need to take a long-term leave of absence (or extended leave of absence). Long-term leave of absence refers to absences of more than 4 weeks. Reasons for long-term leave of absence may include:

  • Sabbaticals
  • Career breaks
  • Long-term physical or mental illness

For employers, long-term leave of absence can place a considerable amount of pressure on existing team members, especially when it is unplanned. For this reason, employers in the UK put in place clear policies and procedures regarding long-term leave of absence, setting out:

  • What is meant by long-term leave of absence
  • Expectations of managers and employees
  • How and when medical advice may be needed
  • Pay entitlement for long-term sickness
  • The process for handling long-term absences, including formal review meetings
  • How you as an employer will support a return to work
  • Return to work process

Measuring lost time

Time lost due to absence can place considerable financial and operational strain on businesses. For this reason, it is always recommended that a process for measuring and monitoring lost time due to absences be implemented. This will enable your business to better understand any absence patterns and the possible causes. It may be that certain team members are experiencing environmental or managerial issues, which means they need to take additional time off. By reviewing time lost due to absence and resolving any issues, you can reduce the financial and operational impact on your business. You can measure lost time in a number of ways, including measuring:

  •  % of possible working time lost to absence
  • The average number of absences per employee, and
  • An individual’s persistent short-term absence – this is known as the Bradford Formula, which is used in HR teams to measure staff absenteeism.

Role of the Absence Policy

HR absence policies set out an organisation’s rules, processes, and approach to workplace absence. It should cover planned, unplanned, unauthorised sickness, parental and maternity leave, and extended leave of absence. For example, a sickness absence policy may include a sickness absence notification process, and any documents employees should provide when they are off sick.

The purpose of providing an absence policy is to make your business’s approach to absence as clear and transparent as possible to everyone.

Short-term time off (STO)

Short-term absence typically refers to absences from work of up to 5 days. It can include planned time off (e.g. to attend a GP appointment or dentist) or unplanned time off (e.g. child illness or emergencies). Persistent short-term absences may indicate that a problem needs to be addressed. It may be that the member of staff is having problems at home, within their job, or with their health. By putting in place a clear policy on STO, you can ensure that the rules regarding pay, and process are clear.

In some cases, it may be necessary to consider disciplinary procedures for unacceptable and repeated absences from work. Before taking this type of action, it is essential to understand the underlying cause of the absences and provide support where possible and appropriate. This may require additional information, such as medical advice. Do not assume that an employee is taking time off work repeatedly for non-genuine reasons.

Unauthorised absences from work

According to ACAS, unauthorised absence occurs when an employee does not turn up for work and they either:

  • Do not have permission from their employer beforehand, or
  • Do not follow the HR absence policy for reporting an unexpected absence

Lateness can be handled in the same way as unauthorised absences from work. Just because a member of staff is absent without leave (AWOL) does not mean there is an automatic reason to consider disciplinary procedures. It is important to check in the first instance that the individual is safe and well by:

  • Contacting the employee using their work contact details
  • Contacting them using their personal contact details
  • Getting in contact with their emergency contact

Again, it is advisable to include unauthorised absences within the absence policy / HR handbook.

What is unpaid leave?

Unpaid leave means that an employee does not need to be paid for the time they take off. Leave may be unpaid if the absence is not covered by statutory sickness leave, paid annual leave, or other permitted time off (e.g. bereavement, maternity or paternity leave).

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