by Ian MacIntosh
As many employers place greater emphasis on employee wellbeing, duvet days or mental health days are becoming more frequent additions to employee benefits packages. With this, you may be wondering what exactly a duvet day is and whether you’re entitled to one.
Despite their growing popularity in recent years, duvet days first came about in the 1990s. The concept is fairly simple – a formal allowance of paid-leave that you can take without giving your employer prior notice and is separate from your annual holiday entitlement.
Unlike sick leave, employees aren’t required to give their employer a reason for taking a duvet day. Instead, they are designed to be taken on days when employees feel that they would benefit from a day off; for example, you may have had a bad night’s sleep or be feeling stressed.
With stress and burnout a growing problem among workers, some employers see duvet days as a way to help employees manage these issues. Whatever your reason for taking one, a duvet day entitles you to take the day off without advance warning and without needing to justify it.
No matter how much you love your job, most of us will have had the feeling of being unable to face work on any given day. Duvet days allow you to listen to your mind or body when it’s telling you that and take a day off to reset.
The hope among employers is that by taking time out when needed, employees will go back to work feeling more energised and less stressed.
The number of duvet days on offer differs from business to business, but they tend to range from one to three days a year. However, employers aren’t required to offer duvet days, and some will be unable to. For example, if you’re part of a small business, duvet days may not be feasible due to their ad-hoc nature which can put too much pressure on others within the organisation. To find out if duvet days are part of your benefits package, check your employment contract or talk to your HR representative.