Survey reveals how generous firms are over staff leave

A third of
companies offer employees guaranteed or discretionary paid leave to get married
while 4 in 10 (42 per cent) give paid time off for moving house.

These are
the results of a survey of over 250 UK organisations by Mercer Human Resource
Consulting.

On average,
in addition to normal holiday entitlement staff are given two days’ leave for
marriage and one day to move house.

More
prevalent is additional paid leave for family emergencies. 

Over half
(56 per cent) of the companies surveyed give guaranteed time off for a death in
the family while the rest (44 per cent) operate their policy on a discretionary
basis. 

In cases of
serious family illness, a fifth (20 per cent) of companies provide paid leave
automatically and more than half (55 per cent) 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."

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Of the
organisations surveyed, only 6 per cent allow staff to take time off to go on a
sabbatical.

By Ben
Willmott