Our nursery manager has been absent because her child is ill or has been sent home from school. We have paid her for that time off, but this has happened several times and can’t continue to do so…
Employees have the statutory right to a reasonable period of unpaid time off for dependants, including for unexpected disruption to care arrangements, e.g. a child being ill or sent home from school.
Any policy regarding paid/unpaid time off is operated in a consistent manner to avoid claims that an employee is being treated unfairly. If employees have, over a period of time, generally been paid during periods of ad hoc absence and the nursery now wishes to change this, it is possible that payment during such periods has become contractual through ‘custom and practice’. Employees’ agreement may therefore need to be sought to change the arrangement.
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