How much paid study leave does yr org offer?

[MrsMargoLeadbetter]

Hello

Looking to benchmark if possible. Someone in my team is doing a self-funded MA. Their dissertation is focussed on our org, so could be useful.

They have asked for paid study leave to help them finish off writing the dissertation.

The staff handbook says we can grant paid study leave at the discretion of the line manager. Our HR consultant and CEO are both away. I am about to go on leave, so need to give them an answer.

We are a charity with 25 staff.

Would be great to know what other organisations offer.

TIA

Nothing. Everyone self-funded in our organisation has to take annual leave for this sort of thing.

Mo actual leave - We do get our tuition fees paid in full and to scale back to PT if we've been there for over a year and commit to either stay on for another two (we will owe the fees in full if we decide to resign before that).

My former company offered 5 days a year (and paid for my MA - I was bloody lucky!) But our annual leave package wasn't great. I don't know if my current employer (a university!) offers any as I've not looked into it, but my annual leave is very generous so wouldn't mind so much if they didn't.

So I think some balance against annual leave is fair. If your company's package is the bare minimum, then I think some paid leave (maybe a week?) is fair. If it's generous, then I think your team member should be expected to use their annual leave.

We can have 5 days per qualification that work are paying for. There’d be nothing if it was self-funded.

My daughter is a graduate for a big multinational company. They pay her exam fees, and she gets at least a day's study leave for each exam. She will be doing the exams for about 5 years. This year she has done about 5 exams so far.
If she doesn't pass an exam she can resit but has to pay herself.
I wold say your person should get at least a couple of days, particularly as the dissertation will help the company in some way.

I've never worked anywhere that has offered this. I have worked places that will pay for training and study that you can do during work time and you usually get half a day off per week for the training. This can obviously stack up to a lot of time off.

Do you have any idea of when their dissertation is due or how much they have done so far? I wouldn't necessarily ask them this as it shouldn't really be used as a marker to decide how much time to give them.

My feeling is that you could say that you will give them half a day for the next two weeks but that you then need to discuss further leave with the CEO when they return, or something like that. I think it's important to try and offer some parity and you don't want to offer above and beyond if it can't be offered to the next person.

How long is the dissertation?
If it is down to your discretion and they havw self funded/done the rest of it on their own time i would say 5 days.

At manager's discretion. Some managers are pretty reasonable. Others aren't keen on you having study leave even for exams they pay for and expect you to take as part of your job-role.

We can also get tuition assistance payments, within certain guidelines.

If it is self funded then none.

If the company has paid for the course then it is at managers discretion.

None unless you are one of the very select few hand picked to do a funded MA and accelerated into higher management. However most of the training and exams we do are internal and part of our companies own graduate and technical professional training programs and that is all done on work time anyway.

5 days development leave as long as it relates to your current job. I work for a charity too

Got the exam days off.. 5 days in total.

to help them finish off writing the dissertation

I'd have to question what exactly they plan to do with any study leave they take. If it's to get the pages in order and arrange for the final document to be mounted and bound (which itself is time consuming) then those finishing touches are a different matter to having to complete writing. And then have to get it bound and submitted.

I'd ask them what their deadline is, when they need the study leave (as you will have to arrange cover during their absence) and how many days they need, then you can assess if what they want is reasonable. You could propose they use AL of 2-3 days and you'd match that amount.

Nothing for a charity. I’d be livid to think that the money I donate every year was funding employees career progression! Would like it to directly help what it’s set up for

none

"I’d be livid to think that the money I donate every year was funding employees career progression! Would like it to directly help what it’s set up for"

That's extremely shortsighted of you. Training and developing employees who work for charities helps them perform their roles better (which benefits recipients of whatever services the charity performs in the case of service delivery staff, and increases fundraising in the case of those staff, therefore increases amounts available to spend on those charitable objectives). Employee development also helps retain good staff in a sector where salaries are not usually high, therefore reducing by thousands the amount of charitable funding which has to be spent on recruitment, allowing more of that money to be spent on service delivery instead.

I'm not saying charities never waste money, but being 'livid' that employees have anything spent on them and thinking it's not to the charity's benefit to do so is bonkers tbh.

Unfortunately I have a biased opinion as I used to volunteer for a charity and the money spent on rent, staff, training etc represented over 86% of income. I think some people would shocked at how little directly helps those in need

I work for the nhs and get 30 days of study leave to be used over 3 years.

NHS - 5 days study leave per year

"I have a biased opinion as I used to volunteer for a charity and the money spent on rent, staff, training etc represented over 86% of income"

Don't let one very poorly run charity taint your view overall. I used to work for Macmillan Cancer Support, and a quick look at last year's annual report informs me that about 75% of their spending went on charitable activities. I don't think they are massively out of kilter with other comparable charities, I'm sure most of the big ones are between 60 % and 80 % on charitable activities.

Any charity spending 86% of income on rent, staff and training rather than charitable activities is a disgrace, but most of them are not like that.

NHS- no study leave. All CPD has to be done on days off or by swapping shifts unless it’s statutory and mandatory training which is for two days a year.

I have worked for a charity for 25 years and I have not once been put on any training course paid for by my employers. I am self funding my degree which my employers will greatly benefit from the knowledge I have gained. And I’m on shite wages but you stick to thinking that Your donations should go 100% to the activities on the ground.

A day for any written exams and that's it (a university).