Best practices for managing employee leave and working time

Leave types include (but aren’t limited to) vacation, sick and family, and all are at least partly intended to ensure employees can balance their professional and personal lives. This article addresses trends in employee leave, emerging regulations designed to promote work-life balance, and why employers need to keep abreast of these changes to stay compliant and minimise operational risks.

Promoting — and expecting — flexible working

One notable trend that relates to paid leave is the rise in flexible working arrangements, including both when and where workers are allowed to perform their duties. In the UK, for example, employees can request flexible working starting on their first day of employment and can make two flexible working requests in any 12-month period.

UK legislation defines flexible working as “a way of working that suits an employee’s needs, for example having flexible start and finish times, or working from home.” Significantly, the law applies to all employees, not just parents and other caregivers. Furthermore, employers must address each request in a defined reasonable manner.

To give another example, Singapore will replace its existing guidelines on flexible working arrangements in December 2024. The changes are part of Singapore’s ongoing efforts to enhance work-life balance and promote a more adaptable workforce.

Given changing laws in countries around the world and employer policies and practices that promote workplace flexibility, it’s easy to forget that flexibility was not a primary factor in employee engagement just a decade ago. Workplace flexibility is now widely considered one of the top four engagement drivers. 

Millennial workers in particular are passionate about workplace flexibility. One study showed that 76 percent of millennials expect flexible working options, the highest percentage of the generations surveyed. It should be stressed that the majority of the other two generations surveyed — Gen Z and Gen X — also expected flexibility.

Drawbacks

Unfortunately, there are drawbacks to workplace flexibility, even for the employees who increasingly demand it. The ability to work remotely is of course primarily enabled by the rise of technologies such as laptops and smartphones. And the very tools that allow us to work from home and at all hours also make it difficult for many people to clearly separate working time from personal time, even when on vacation or during holidays. This inability to switch off from work can lead to stress, which can in turn can result in serious health problems.

Some lawmakers, unions and governments have recognised this problem and in recent years taken steps to promote a healthy work-life balance in our connected world.

Case study: French labour laws and global Olympics coverage

In France, employer-employee relationships are governed by a complex set of laws and regulations which leaves little room for individual negotiation. The French labour code (code du travail) provides a comprehensive framework for both individual and collective relationships between employers and employees.

Given rising concerns over the inability of workers to switch off from work, the labour code sets out daily and weekly rest periods. All French employees must:

• benefit from a minimum daily rest period of 11 consecutive hours between two working periods
• benefit from a minimum weekly rest period of one day (i.e. 24 consecutive hours), in addition to the 11 hours’ daily rest between two working days, which adds up to 35 consecutive hours of weekly rest.

France’s labour laws are a prime example of why multinational organisations must understand worker rights prior to expanding into (or acquiring another company in) a new jurisdiction. Needless to say, country-specific labour laws can significantly affect an organisation’s operations. Employers need to be aware of any restrictions and adapt to them or face fines, penalties and/or reputational damage.

The BBC confronted the power of France’s worker protections during the 2024 summer Olympics in Paris. The Telegraph reported that the country’s “strictly enforced employment laws” — in particular the mandated minimum of 11 consecutive hours between working periods — prevent the anchors from presenting both morning and evening events. The article quotes an anchor as saying of French authorities, “They are really strict about it apparently. It’s not just a kind of box-ticking exercise. It’s quite a change for all of us.”

It’s worth emphasising that France’s rules extend far beyond the daily and weekly rest periods. And — like virtually all countries’ labour rules — they can be complex. For example, companies with at least 50 employees must have an annual negotiation process that in part examines:

• equality between female and male employees
• the employees’ ability to exercise their right to disconnect from all devices
• policies that regulate the use of digital devices to ensure employees can in practice take annual leave and balance their personal and professional lives

Australia’s right to disconnect

France and the EU in general may have something of a global reputation for robust worker protections, but countries in other regions are introducing similar rules. Australia’s right to disconnect law, for example, is effective on 26 August 2024 for employers with 15 or more employees, and on 26 August 2025 for small businesses.

Australia’s law states that employees “will have the right to refuse contact outside their working hours unless that refusal is unreasonable. This means an employee can refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact from an employer or a third party.” An “unreasonable” refusal by an employee will be determined by why the employee is being contacted, if the employee is compensated, the employee’s job level and other factors.

Organisations with workers in Australia should know that employers themselves are not prohibited from contacting employees outside working hours; rather, the law grants the employees the right to refuse contact under certain circumstances.

Employer programs

Legislators are not the only group questioning traditional working practices. Many employers are introducing programs that promote work-life balance to attract and retain talent while maintaining or even increasing productivity levels.

The Danish consulting company IIH Nordic introduced a four-day week trial in 2017 where employees work 30 hours over four days with no reduction in pay. The purpose was to optimise workflows by reducing unnecessary meetings and encouraging employees to work more efficiently during their shorter hours. The company reported stable or increased productivity levels and improved employee wellbeing.

Additional employer considerations

Employers have also taken notice of the need to help employees manage working time and leave time. Not only is work-related stress associated with health problems and employee absences, employees who fail to take their allotted leave can accumulate significant leave balances.

In most jurisdictions, an employee must be paid his or her leave balance at the end of employment with a company. Often this is calculated on an average wage, which includes not only base salary but commissions and other entitlements. In countries such as Australia where the balance rolls over from year to year, this can result in significant payments due to employees at the end of their tenures. Many employers fail to track, and budget for, these liabilities.

In order to mitigate leave-balance liabilities — and to promote work-life balance and employee health — many employers implement employee-leave policies that include regular working-time reviews. Employers should also consider adding the following items to their HR policies and practices:

• Encourage holiday/vacation requests as far in advance as possible
• Help employees schedule leave when it suits the employee and meets business requirements
• Develop a holiday/vacation policy that includes any minimum staffing requirements
• Do not pay out unused-leave balances unless required by law
• Empower managers to approve reasonable requests for flexible schedules

While some of these policies — such as the one mandating regular employee working-time reviews — may seem onerous and even superfluous, the benefits can be substantial. Not only do such polices promote employee engagement and retention, they can lead to efficiencies. As IIH Nordic’s four-day working week programme suggests — and as other studies demonstrate — increased time off often results in increased worker productivity.

Employers should also remember that they have a duty of care to protect their employees, which includes promoting a reasonable work-life balance. Showing that you care about your employees’ work-life balance through clear, worker-friendly policies and practices will in the long run benefit both your organisation and your workforce.

This is an updated version of a previously published article.