Balancing work and family life can be tough! How to be a supportive boss by understanding legal requirements for leave, along with flexible work options that can keep your business running smoothly and your employees happy?
Most of us have a family of some sort. Families come in many shapes and sizes these days and the people who work in your business could have very varied family situations. What we all have in common is the need to balance effectively the different responsibilities and commitments in our lives.
This month we’re talking about what employers HAVE to do to support people with caring responsibilities and also what you might WANT to do as part of ensuring you have a happy, successful team who contribute effectively to achieving your business goals.
A new addition to the family
Many managers will have heard of Maternity Leave. This is a period of leave, of up to 52 weeks, that an employee can take related to giving birth to a child. There’s also a similar period of leave available for those who adopt a child, called Adoption Leave. The worker doesn’t have to have been with your company for any particular period of time to be eligible for the leave, but you will only have to make statutory payments to them if they have been with you for a while. If they are eligible for statutory payments, then you can claim back those payments from HMRC. Your payroll provider can explain how that works.
There’s also a type of leave called Shared Parental Leave (not to be confused with Parental Leave, see below). This is where two people with responsibility for the child can share the total 52 weeks of leave between them. Shared Parental Leave has lots of complications and rules, so best to speak with a HR professional if someone in your organisation wants to take it.
All three types of leave work in the same way. The individual has to tell you in advance and confirm when they want to take the leave. You can cover the job with a temporary member of staff, but you must keep the job available (unchanged if possible) for the person on leave to return to. You also need to keep the person informed about what’s happening in the business and support them to still be part of the organisation, even when they’re away - definitely NOT “out of sight, out of mind”.
One thing that often gets overlooked is that holiday allowance still accrues during these types of leave, so it’s really important to plan out when the holiday will be taken - within the correct holiday year if at all possible.
There’s another type of leave available, unhelpfully called Paternity Leave. Unhelpful name, because you don’t actually have to be a father to take it. This is time off that someone can take if they are the partner of the person taking Maternity or Adoption Leave. It’s two weeks, taken together or separately.
Employees with children and dependent adults
Unfortunately, from time to time, children get sick or childcare arrangements break down. There are also the school holidays to get through. Employees may have caring responsibilities for others who are dependent on them - elderly parent, disabled partner, for example
If there’s an unforeseen situation that necessitates someone taking time off work to care for a dependant, then you must allow them to take that time off - but you don’t have to pay them for it. You can ask them to make up the time or to take it as unpaid leave. If you want to, you can let them take it as paid holiday, but that’s your choice. And remember, you only HAVE to give them the time off to make arrangements for the care of that dependant - anything above that is your choice.
There are also two types of planned leave that those with caring responsibilities can take. They should make a request in advance and, as long as the reason for the leave is to care for a dependant, then you will need to agree to the request. You can ask them to postpone it if the timing is difficult for the business, but you have to allow them to take it. Parental Leave is up to a total of 18 weeks of unpaid leave per child, with a maximum of 4 weeks taken within any 12 month period. Carer’s Leave is 1 week of unpaid leave per year. Be very careful before trying to turn down any such requests.
Occasionally, businesses can offer term time only working - an arrangement where you work only for 39 weeks of the year. However, not every role or company can do this. If you’d like to consider such an arrangement for someone in your team then get in touch and we can help out with the calculations and paperwork.
Changing working arrangements
Since April 2024, all staff are now legally entitled to request a change to their working arrangements (hours per week, work schedule, work location, etc.). They can make this request from day one of employment, which means you’re likely to be asked about the options when you’re recruiting. Our topic in our March newsletter was flexible working so take a look there for more information.
By offering some flexibility in working arrangements, you open up your vacancies to a wider range of people. Also, it can enable you to retain staff when their personal situations change.
For parents, they may request school hours working (typically 09:30-14:30) or a split shift where they collect children from school and then work another few hours in the evening. They may also request term time working where they are contracted to work for 39 out of 52 weeks of the year.
For people with other caring responsibilities, they may need to work a shorter week so that they can provide care themselves on certain days. Or they may need to have a later start time than normal.
Ad hoc flexibility
What people often need is often ad hoc flexibility when there are appointments to attend or when a dependant needs more support at certain times. Building a relationship of mutual trust is important, where they know what you need them to deliver for the business and you can trust them to do that without monitoring where and when they work. If you don’t have this relationship with your team, then developing it would be a good place to start. Then you can allow flexibility, in the knowledge that your team will always make sure the work is done and the customers are happy.
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