Employees who have worked for their employer for a continuous period of 26 weeks can apply for flexible working. Flexible working is a change to your terms and conditions of employment that is made to facilitate caring responsibilities.
Your employer can reject your flexible working request on business grounds, for example, if it would result in unreasonable cost to the business or impact on quality or customer demand.
You should be careful that you continue to meet the terms of your visa if there is any change to your working hours and income.
Employees have the right to take time off to deal with an emergency involving a dependent. An ‘emergency’ is a sudden, unexpected problem. An example might be your child falling ill at school or your childminder cancelling unexpectedly.
You are entitled to ‘reasonable’ time off to deal with the emergency and make alternative care arrangements. In practice, this might mean you can take time off to collect a sick child from school and care for them for the rest of the day, but you might have to rely on other forms of leave, such as annual leave, if you want to stay off for a few days to care for your child.
Your employer does not have to pay you for time off for dependents.
If you are a parent and have been employed for more than a year, you have the right to request parental leave. You should give your employer at least 21 days’ notice of when you want your leave to begin.
Usually parental leave is taken in blocks of one week or more. You can take up to four weeks of parental leave per year and each parent can take up to 18 weeks of parental leave until your child turns 18.
Parental leave is generally unpaid.
From 11 March 2024, if you come to the UK on a Health and Care Worker visa, your partner and children cannot apply to join you or stay with you in the UK unless you were already employed as a care worker or senior care worker before that date.
Your family members may need to apply for a Visit Visa if they wish to come to Northern Ireland to see you. They will need to demonstrate that they will leave Northern Ireland at the end of their trip.
