Equality and Human Rights Commission

• Tell your workers when they start working for you what the process is for requesting time off and how decisions are made.
• Include annual leave and other sorts of time off such as maternity, paternity and adoption leave, parental leave and time off for emergencies. You could include this information in an employee’s written terms of employment or contract and/or put it in a staff handbook if your organisation has one.
• Try to be flexible about when annual holidays are taken and make sure your workers know how much notice you require to be able to work out how to meet as many people’s needs as possible (for example, if you have to ask other people to cover their work).
• There may be some jobs where it is not possible to be flexible but explanation and discussion may enable a compromise to be achieved. You do not have to accept unreasonable disruption to your organisation’s activities.
• While it may be practical for one person or even a small number to be absent, it might be difficult for you if lots of people ask for the same time off. If this happens, you should discuss this with the people making the request (and with a recognised trade union if there is one) with the aim of balancing the needs of the organisation and of your workers.

Q. Is it unlawful sex discrimination if I don’t allow a woman time off to have fertility treatment?

A. Neither equality law nor employment law gives a woman a right to time off for in vitro fertilisation (IVF) or other fertility treatment. But in responding to any request, you must not treat a woman worse than you would treat a man making an equivalent request for time off.

For example:

A female worker who is undergoing IVF treatment has to take time off sick because of its side effects.  Her employer treats this as ordinary sickness absence and pays her contractual sick pay that is due to her.  Had contractual sick pay been refused, this could amount to sex discrimination.

Of course, after a fertilised embryo has been implanted, a woman is legally pregnant and from that point is protected from unfavourable treatment because of pregnancy, including pregnancy-related sickness. She would also be entitled to time off for ante-natal care.

It is good practice (though not a legal requirement) for you to treat sympathetically any request for time off for IVF or other fertility treatment, and consider working out a procedure to cover this situation. This could include allowing women to take annual leave or unpaid leave when receiving treatment and designating a member of staff whom they can inform on a confidential basis that that they are undergoing treatment.