Mellow Blog

HR & payroll, done properly

Practical, country-by-country guides on payroll, compliance and leave — and how to treat your people as capital to invest in, not headcount to manage. Written for HR leaders at growing companies across the UK, Ireland, USA, UAE, India and Australia.

Payroll to the penny in 6 countriesERA 2025 & local compliance built inConnects to Slack, Teams, Xero & QuickBooksBuilt for teams of 10–100
People Management Australia

Religious observance and time off in Australia

Religious observance and time off in Australia is an area where employer obligations are often misunderstood. The short answer: employees have the right to request time off for religious observance, a

5 min readRead →
People Management UAE

Religious observance and time off in the United Arab Emirates

Employees in the UAE are entitled to paid time off for public holidays, including the main Islamic occasions, and to reasonable accommodation for daily religious practices. Understanding how those ent

5 min readRead →
People Management Ireland

Religious observance and time off in Ireland

Employees in Ireland have no statutory right to time off specifically for religious observance, but employers have a legal duty under equality law to reasonably accommodate employees' religious belief

5 min readRead →
ERA 2025 Global

ERA 2025: Flexible Working Requests — New Rules for Employers

ERA 2025 gives all employees the right to request flexible working from day one. What the new consultation requirement means in practice.

1 min readRead →
People Management India

Study and exam leave in India

Paid study and exam leave is not mandated under central labour law in India, but employees do have enforceable rights in specific situations — and employers who handle this poorly face both legal and

5 min readRead →
People Management UK

Study and exam leave in the United Kingdom

Employees in the UK have no statutory right to paid study or exam leave, but employers can — and often do — grant it as a contractual or discretionary benefit. How you handle it will shape whether you

5 min readRead →
People Management USA

Study and exam leave in the United States

Employees asking for time off to study or sit exams puts most US employers in unfamiliar territory. There is no federal law requiring paid or unpaid study leave, so what you offer — and how you docume

5 min readRead →
People Management Australia

Study and exam leave in Australia

Employers in Australia are not required by law to provide paid study or exam leave under the National Employment Standards — but many awards, enterprise agreements and employment contracts do include

5 min readRead →
People Management UAE

Study and exam leave in the United Arab Emirates

Study and exam leave in the UAE is not mandated by Federal Decree-Law No. 33/2021 for private sector employees, which means there is no statutory right to paid or unpaid study leave in most cases. Whe

5 min readRead →
People Management Ireland

Study and exam leave in Ireland

Employees in Ireland have no statutory right to paid study or exam leave — but many employers offer it as a contractual benefit, and how you handle it affects both fairness and retention.

5 min readRead →
People Management India

Fertility and IVF leave in India

Fertility and IVF treatment leave is not yet a statutory entitlement in India — no central law requires employers to grant paid leave specifically for fertility procedures. That said, a growing number

5 min readRead →
People Management UK

Fertility and IVF leave in the United Kingdom

Fertility and IVF treatment leave has no standalone statutory basis in UK law — there is no automatic, named right to "fertility leave" the way there is for maternity or paternity leave. However, empl

5 min readRead →