HR UK – Time Away From Work Policy

Purpose

We recognise that you may need to take leave for compassionate reasons, to deal with

domestic crises, unexpected events or to undertake public duties. We want to assist you

when facing these issues and therefore we provide both paid and unpaid leave for a variety

of situations in addition to your holiday entitlements. This policy covers all time away from

work other than sickness related absences and family leave.

Scope

This policy is effective from 1 July 2019 and is non-contractual, entirely discretionary and

can be amended or changed at any time. It applies to employees of AstraZeneca UK Ltd,

MedImmune Ltd and MedImmune UK Ltd.

Important - guidance on this page does not apply to AstraZeneca SA91 Macclesfield

employees. Please refer to SA91 holiday guidance here

Responsibilities

All leave should be recorded in Workday

Main Information

 Holiday Guidelines and Procedures

 Core Annual Holiday Entitlement

 Holiday buy

 Service Recognition Holidays

 Holiday Carryover

 Personal Emergency and Compassionate Leave

 Personal Leave

 Emergency and Dependant Leave

 Compassionate Leave

 Gender Reassignment

 Public and Community Duties

 Public Duties

 Jury Service

 Court Appearance

 Volunteering

 Reservists

 Extended Unpaid Leave

 Time Out Leave

 Parental Leave

Holiday Guidelines and Procedures

Regular holidays are important to ensure we relax and rejuvenate. They enable us to

maintain our health and wellbeing and manage our work/life demands and planned events.

You are given a holiday balance (core annual holiday entitlement) at the start of every

holiday year (1 July – 30 June) and we encourage you to take holiday across the course of

the year so that you get meaningful rest from work.

Core Annual Holiday Entitlement

Key point - All employees must take their core holiday entitlement in full.

AstraZeneca employees are entitled to the following core holiday

Core annual holiday entitlement (must be taken

in full each year)

182.5 hours/25 days - this is pro rated for part

time employees

What about bank holidays?

 Full time employees are entitled to eight bank holidays per year which are not recorded

in Workday.

 Part time employees have their pro rated bank holidays included within their core annual

holiday entitlement and these are recorded in Workday.

MedImmune Employees are entitled to the following core holiday

Core annual holiday entitlement (must be taken

in full each year)

187.5 hours/25 days - this is pro rated for part

time employees

What about bank holidays?

 Full time employees are entitled to eight bank holidays per year which are not recorded

in Workday.

 Part time employees have their pro rated bank holidays included within their core annual

holiday entitlement and these are recorded in Workday.

MedImmune Speke (Shift Workers) employees are entitled to the following core

holiday

Core annual holiday entitlement (must be taken

in full each year)

276 hours (23 days) - this is pro-rated for part

time employees

Arrangements for bank holidays vary, so please check local practices.

Please read and be aware of the following:

 Any unused holiday will not be paid for, except if you are leaving the company and have

been unable to take your full entitlement. Please read carry over guidance in this article

 Your holiday entitlement is shown in hours and minutes, which is the unit of time

measurement used in Workday. (Note: 0.5 equates to 30 minutes and not 50 minutes).

 Your department may have local practices on booking and authorising holidays, but as a

general principle you should book holidays in Workday as early as possible. Your

manager will approve your holiday requests subject to business needs and in line with

local practice.

 Business areas/sites will determine and communicate Christmas working arrangements.

If your business area/site closes over the Christmas and New Year period, holidays will

be mandatory and you need to make sure you have sufficient holiday to cover this.

 If you change your contractual weekly working hours, this will affect your holiday

entitlement.

 Please read the Sickness Absence policy to understand how sickness may affect your

holiday arrangements.

Points to note if you work part-time:

 If you work part-time, your core annual holiday entitlement, any bought days, any service

recognition holidays, any carried over holidays and your pro-rated bank holiday

entitlement are shown in your Workday holiday balance. Watch this short video to

understand how you check your holiday balance.

 Part time employees have their pro rated bank holidays included within their core annual

holiday entitlement. You need to book bank holidays as holiday in Workday if they fall on

one of your normal working days.

If you are a new starter:

 If you join the company part way through the holiday year (1 July – 30 June) you will

receive a proportion of your core annual holiday entitlement. This will be calculated in

Workday.

Holiday if you are leaving the company:

 If you’re leaving the company, all your holiday entitlement will be pro-rated depending on

your leave date and you should use this entitlement before you leave.

 If you are unable to take your holiday before you leave you will be paid for any accrued,

but unused, holiday entitlement.

 If you have taken more than your entitlement up to the date of leaving this will be

deducted from your final pay.

To calculate your remaining holiday, please use the holiday calculator.

Holiday Buy

We recognise that sometimes your core annual holiday entitlement isn’t enough, therefore

you can buy up to an additional two times your contractual weekly working hours via My

Reward during the annual benefits enrolment cycle (you have to confirm in My Reward that

your manager is aware of your holiday buy before you buy extra hours). Look out for your

annual My Reward invitation each June where you can buy additional holiday.

Shift workers at Speke, please check your local practices.

Service Recognition Holidays

You will also receive extra holiday when you reach five and ten years’ service. For more

information please read the Service Recognition policy.

Holiday Carry Over

You are strongly encouraged to use all your holidays each holiday year. If you want to carry

over holidays into the next holiday year you must have taken your core annual holiday

entitlement in the current holiday year.

If you buy extra holidays, and/or have service recognition holidays, you can carry over up to

two times your contractual weekly working hours into the next holiday year and you have the

whole of that holiday year to use the holidays carried over.

This means with carryover/holiday buy the maximum holiday any AstraZeneca employee

can have is:

Entitlement

Employee less than 5

years' service

Employee 5-10 years'

service

Employee more than

10 years' service

Core entitlement 182.5 hours/25 days 182.5 hours/25 days 182.5 hours/25 days

Service recognition 0 7.3 hours/1 day 14.6 hours/2 days

Bought holidays 73 hours/10 days 73 hours/10 days 73 hours/10 days

TOTAL 255.5 hours/35 days 262.8 hours/36 days 270.1 hours/37 days

This means with carryover/holiday buy the maximum holiday any MedImmune employee can

have is:

Entitlement

Employee less than 5

years' service

Employee 5-10 years'

service

Employee more than

10 years' service

Core entitlement 187.5 hours/25 days 187.5 hours/25 days 187.5 hours/25 days

Service recognition 0 7.3 hours/1 day 14.6 hours/2 days

Bought holidays 75 hours/10 days 75 hours/10 days 75 hours/10 days

TOTAL 262.5 hours/35 days 270 hours/36 days 277.5 hours/37 days

You shouldn’t have more than an additional 2x your contractual weekly working hours in

your holiday balance at any time.

If you are carrying a large number of days in your holiday balance, then you should talk to

your manager and plan how to take your time off.

If you have further questions please go to Holiday Principles Frequently Asked Questions.

Personal, Emergency and Compassionate Leave

Once approved by your manager, these leave types should be recorded in workday by

requesting time off.

Personal leave

We all have significant one-off life events that we would like to celebrate, and we will support

you at these times by providing up to one occasion of paid leave a year. You may wish to

use this for your wedding/civil partnership, when you move house, or for your graduation

from University. As these events are planned well in advance we ask you to request the

leave as early as possible. This is discretionary, and your manager will discuss any reasons

for declining your request with you.

Emergency & Dependant Leave

When faced with an emergency we need the flexibility to be able to manage any unplanned

emergency events. To support you with this you can take up to two occasions of paid leave

a year for you to deal with the situation and put a longer term solution in place, if required.

The type of situation you may require this leave for could be due to a domestic emergency

such as a breakdown in childcare, an ill child or dependant, a serious incident involving a

dependant, a dependant gives birth, a burglary, flood or fire at home. If you need to take

time off in an emergency contact your manager as soon as possible and let them know what

has happened and how much time off you are likely to need. If you need a bit longer your

manager can authorise some unpaid leave, normally up to five occasions or you could book

holiday.

Compassionate Leave

If you are in the unfortunate situation of dealing with a distressing personal situation we want

to be able to support you. We provide up to 10 occasions or 2 weeks of paid leave a year to

enable you to take time away from work if you suffer the loss of a dependant or partner, a

child (including a still birth [after 24 weeks of pregnancy]), parent or sibling or if you are

impacted by a serious injury or illness suffered by them. It can also be granted to attend a

funeral or memorial service for other close family members. Contact your manager as soon

as possible if you need to take time off.

Remember you can use the free confidential Employee Assistance Programme for practical

and emotional assistance on a wide range of day-to-day issues. They can be contacted on

0800 072 1425 or to be supported online via My Reward.

Gender Reassignment

We will support employees requiring time off for gender reassignment. Please speak to your

manager or your HR Business Partner so we can understand what support and time off you

require.

Public and Community Duties

Once approved by your manager, these leave types should be recorded in workday by

requesting time off.

Public Duties

Employees holding certain public positions will require a reasonable amount of unpaid leave,

normally up to 10 occasions a year, to fulfil their public duties. You will need to give your

manager as much notice as possible if you require time off. These positions are:

 Magistrate (also known as a justice of the peace)

 Local councillor

 Member of any statutory tribunal e.g. an employment tribunal

 Member of the managing or governing body of an educational establishment/ Member of

a school council or board in Scotland

 Member of a health authority

 Member of the Environment Agency or the Scottish Environment Protection agency

 Member of the prison independent monitoring boards (England or Wales) or a member

of the prison visiting committees (Scotland)

 Member of Scottish Water or a Water Customer Consultation Panel

 Trade union member (for trade union duties)

Jury Service

If you are asked to do jury service, please inform your manager as soon as you receive the

notification. There may be rare situations where your manager may ask you to defer your

jury service, where you are working on a critical work activity. This can only be done once,

and should be in exceptional circumstances. You will be given paid leave to attend and may

claim and retain travelling and subsistence allowances provided by the court. You may not

be required to attend court every day, if this is the case you should come into work.

Court Appearance

If you are required to attend court as a witness, speak to your manager or contact My HR for

advice as the circumstances as to whether this is paid or unpaid time off vary.

Volunteering

Volunteering can make a significant difference to others and the sense of achievement can

have positive benefits to our health. We want to get as many people as possible to come

together to volunteer in our local communities and therefore you are encouraged to take one

paid occasion per year to undertake volunteering activities in UK charities and not-for-profit

organisations. You can find out more by visiting the ivolunteer site.

STEM activities such as the Big Bang events are covered by this policy but additional STEM

activities which form part of your role at work are excluded from this policy, as these will be

part of your paid employment and therefore you may be expected to undertake more

volunteering per year.

Reservists

The Voluntary Reserve Forces comprise the Royal Naval Reserve, the Royal Marines

Reserve, the Army Reserve and the Royal Auxiliary Air Force. If you are a member of one of

these forces you will be given five days paid leave and five days unpaid leave per year to

undertake training. Notify your manager as early as possible if you are required to take time

off to undertake training exercises.

If you are called up (mobilised) speak to your manager or contact My HR immediately for

advice.

For more information view the FAQ's document.

Extended unpaid leave

Once approved, the following leave types should be recorded in Workday by requesting

leave of absence. Leave requests of 1 week or more should be recorded across all

applicable calendar days including weekends, non working days and public holidays. Please

ensure you adjust the first day of leave and estimated last day of leave to reflect this where

necessary. Where continuous days have not been selected, this will be corrected by payroll.

Time Out Leave

We recognise you may wish to take an extended break away from work for any number of

reasons be it a career break, further study, travel or for personal reasons. If you have

worked for us for at least one year you can request between 4 weeks and six months unpaid

leave. In some circumstances, this can be extended to 12-months leave. You should discuss

this well in advance with your manager and they will do their best to accommodate the

request.

If your manager is unable to accommodate your request, they will discuss the reason with

you.

If your manager supports your request, they will confirm all the arrangements for your time

out leave in writing. You will need to review the impact on your benefits during your unpaid

leave, so you should refer to Benefits during Time Out leave information.

You will usually be able to return to your original role but if that is not possible, you will return

to a role which has the same status, terms and conditions as before. The Company hopes

that in the vast majority of cases, you will return to your original role, but any unforeseen

circumstances will be discussed with you.

Parental Leave

If your reason for taking an extended break away from work is to fulfil your parental

responsibilities, then you have the right to take a period of up to 18 weeks’ unpaid leave for

each child born or adopted up to their 18th birthday.

If you have worked for us for at least one year you can request up to four weeks unpaid

leave per child per year. The leave should be taken in blocks of one week, but any period of

less than a week is counted as a whole week. If you are caring for a disabled child, single

days can be taken.

You should discuss any request as far in advance as possible with your manager, but at

least 21 days before you would like to take the leave. Your manager will consider the

request in line with business needs. They will do their best to accommodate the request but

if they can’t they will discuss the reason with you and look to postpone it to another suitable

date.

You’ll need to consider the impact on your benefits during parental leave so you should refer

to Benefits during Parental Leave information.

If your parental leave is for less than four weeks you have the right to return to your original

role. If your leave is over four weeks or combined with Maternity/Adoption/Shared Parental

Leave or Time Out Leave, you will usually return to your original role or, if that is not

possible, to a role which has the same status, terms and conditions as before. The Company

hopes that in the vast majority of cases, you will return to your original role.

You can consider combining parental leave with Time out leave if you wish to take a longer

period of unpaid leave, always speak to your manager before making any plans.