Right to Request Time to Train
March 8th, 2010Twenty-five million employees in organisations with 250 or more staff gain the right to request time off work for training from April 6, 2010. Employees of all smaller organisations get the right in April 2011.
Under the Children, Skills and Learning Bill, all employees who have worked for their employer for more that 26 weeks will be able to ask to undertake accredited courses that lead to a qualification or for unaccredited training. Once it becomes law, the Bill will empower members of staff to make formal requests in the same way they can already request flexible working.
However, and here’s the rub, employers can agree to meet the employee’s salary during training if they wish – but are not obliged to if it is ‘off the job’ training. Also, employers agreeing a request can choose to organise the training – and pay for it – but there is no obligation to do so. Similarly, employees may arrange their own training, perhaps through a local college, and request time off work, but employers do not have to pay for it.
The ‘Right to Request Time for Training’ sounds good, and we applaud anything that gets training on the agenda. But when you look at the detail, with no right to request to be paid for such time, I’m not sure it will have much impact. And I cannot see there being a big rush of requests.
What this does highlight though is that it is high time employers looked to the future and started to stretch their training budgets again.
Companies should now be looking more closely at what they need for the future. Skilling up the workforce now is crucial if businesses are going to hit the ground running for the much anticipated recovery.
However, to make the most of this opportunity employers will really need to put their hands in their pockets and I’m not sure that the Bill goes far enough to ensure this will happen.
For more see the DirectGov advice and our Analysing Training Needs Factsheet.
