Most employees are entitled to take a minimum amount of paid holiday every year. This is called statutory holiday. The right to take statutory holiday applies no matter how long the employee has worked for the employer and, unless the employee is under school leaving age, no matter how old the employee is.

Benefits in kind are any form of benefit or consideration offered by an employer to an employee which is in lieu of the monetary part of their pay or salary. Often it will take the form of something such as a company car, insurance such as private medical insurance, gym membership or a mobile phone.

Often an employer will want to reward employees in ways other than by the payment of a fixed hourly rate. This may be to reflect the variable nature of the work, to give employees an incentive to work harder or simply to allow the employee to benefit from increased earnings of the employer or gratuities from customers and clients.

Pregnant employees are entitled to take up to 52 weeks’ statutory maternity leave at the time of the birth of their child, no matter how long they have worked for an employer. It is important that all such employees are aware of the rights which they possess and that employers too are aware of what those rights are and of the likely penalties for disregarding them.

Despite over 38 years of equal pay legislation, and despite the growth in protection afforded to all groups by the anti-discrimination legislation, nevertheless there continues to be a disparity in the rates at which different workers are paid for what amounts to the same, or a broadly similar, job. This section looks at equal pay legislation and the steps which employees should take to ensure that they receive the same pay as comparable colleagues and at the issues which employers should consider when planning their pay strategies and scales.

Subject to certain conditions, most employees are entitled to receive statutory sick pay when they are absent from work for a period of at least four days up to a limit of 28 weeks in a three year period. However, in addition to this, many employees also have a contractual right to receive their normal salary from their employer for a certain period of time.