If one of your employees has been summoned for jury service, here’s what you need to know.
Talk with your employee about:
If your employee isn’t selected for jury service, they’re free to go back to work. This means they may only be away from work for a few hours during that week.
If your employee is selected to be on a jury, they may be away from work for only part of the week, the whole week, or longer than a week. The length of time they’re away from work will depend on the court case.
The law says you must let your employee do jury service. If there’s too much work on, they can ask the court to defer (put off) their service until a later date as long as it’s within one year. You’ll need to write a letter that your employee can show to the court when they ask to defer their service.
Some employers make up the difference between a juror’s attendance fee and the employee’s normal rate of pay. This means your employee doesn’t lose money because they do jury service.
However, it’s not a legal requirement to do this (unless it’s specified in an employment agreement).