Rights of employee representatives

Some employee representatives have legal rights to help them carry out their duties. These rights depend on the representative's role.

Rights can include:

• paid time off from someone's usual work to carry out certain representative duties
• paid time off for relevant training
• access to facilities to carry out certain duties – for example communication tools and meetings rooms
• protection from dismissal and detriment for carrying out representative duties and activities

This advice is about the rights of non-union employee representatives. It replaces the Acas booklet 'Non-union representation in the workplace'.

You can also read our advice on the rights of trade union representatives.

What employee representatives do

Employee representatives are elected or appointed by people they work with. They represent the views of workers, for example when an employer is consulting on changes.

Employee representatives mainly work in organisations that do not have a recognised trade union.

Some organisations might have both trade union and employee representatives. They might take on different roles. 

Employee representatives are sometimes called non-union representatives, employee reps or workplace reps.

Legal rights of different representatives

Representatives have different legal rights depending on their roles and responsibilities.

Some representatives may take on more than one role. If they do, they have the legal rights for each role.

Find out more about the rights of:

• consultation representatives
• employee safety representatives

Workforce agreement representatives

Workforce agreement representatives are involved with consulting on workforce agreements. These agreements cover maternity, paternity, fixed-term employment and agreements on working time.

Employee representatives in this role do not have a legal right to time off, training or facilities. However, an employer should consider allowing this where needed.

They do have a legal right to protection from dismissal and detriment. This applies when carrying out representative duties.

Raising a problem

An employee representative who believes they're not getting their legal rights can raise this with their employer. It's usually best to raise the problem informally first.

Problems could include:

• an employer and representative disagreeing about whether a time off request is reasonable
• an employer not paying a representative for time spent on representative duties
• an employer refusing a time off request and a representative just taking the time anyway – this could risk being a breach of contract

If they've already tried to resolve things informally, they can raise a grievance. This is a formal complaint to the employer.

A representative can choose to make a claim to an employment tribunal. This would usually be after trying other options.

Keeping records

Employers and representatives should keep records of:

• when a representative takes time off for duties or training
• the purpose of each period of time off
• facilities provided
• any requests that were refused, and the reason why

This can help when dealing with problems.

Get more advice and support

For help with resolving a problem around employee representatives, you can contact the Acas helpline.

Employers can also get Acas tailored support.