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Vanessa
As the office manager at a busy central city supermarket, Vanessa’s role includes assisting staff members planning to take parental leave. She has found that most employees make contact with her soon after they find out they are pregnant. Some are aware that there is government funded paid parental leave but most know little about how or where to access it, so she is usually the main source of information about what they may be entitled to.
Vanessa provides staff with the appropriate forms, talks through the leave options available to them and helps them plan their parental leave. As supermarket work is primarily manual, Vanessa encourages staff to begin their leave at least two or three weeks prior to the expected date of birth, arranging sick leave and annual leave if necessary to enable the staff to take that time. If an employee has little or no leave available to them, Vanessa works with the employee on an individual arrangement to make sure they can take leave and get the rest needed.
Some mothers take longer than the 14 weeks paid leave and most return once their baby is six months old. Many mothers contact Vanessa about their return to work when their babies are four to five months old. She has found that their decision to return to work is often based on financial reasons.
When the mother begins to consider returning to work, Vanessa will arrange for the mother, the department manager and herself to discuss the options available. They look at how they can arrange work hours to fit the employee’s situation including childcare needs or to allow the mother to work while the father is at home to care for the baby.
Due to the nature of the work, the organisation experiences a reasonably high turnover in their casual staff. Vanessa has seen the benefits to the organisation from retaining existing staff and having employees return after parental leave. Employing new staff means re-training, recruitment costs and a period of downtime while the new employee comes to understand the role, whereas returning staff are trained, know the systems and are able to slot straight back into work. Providing flexibility for parents helps retain staff and ensures the organisation gets the benefits.
Vanessa believes paid parental leave also provides benefits to staff. It gives a new parent the opportunity to spend time with their baby while minimising any financial concerns. As the government pays for paid parental leave, there is no direct financial impact on the employer. It also allows the mother the opportunity to return to work without disadvantage to her position or pay, and helps the business retain trained and skilled staff.
Peter
Peter owns a bedding shop where both male and female employees have taken parental leave in the past. In running a small family focused business, Peter tries to be as flexible as possible to accommodate his employee’s requests. In each case he has been advised early about the pregnancy so there has been plenty of time to look at various leave options for the parents and to make plans to allow the business to manage over the leave period.
To date he has not had to employ additional staff to cover the work but he is aware that, as his business is growing this may be the case in the future.
Peter remains flexible about a mother’s return to work, staying in touch after the birth of the baby and keeping her up to date with the business.
He has established a ‘parents room’ in a disused storeroom, making it clean and habitable with sofas and tables which provides mothers a space in which to breastfeed, change nappies or store any gear they bring with them to work.
In one instance Peter recalls, a mother came to him wanting to return to work for financial reasons but hadn’t been able to arrange childcare. He checked to see if she had any leave available to ease financial strain and this allowed her more time to arrange childcare before returning to work.
Peter feels that the business has benefited from his flexible approach to employees taking leave as all but one employee has returned to work in the business, retaining skill, experience and adding positively to the workplace culture. He has also found that his employees have been flexible about accommodating the business needs, changing hours or roles when necessary, enabling the business to function smoothly and better respond to customer needs.
Win/Win Situation
Parental leave should be a positive experience for you and your employee. To ensure this is the case here are some key factors you may want to consider:
take time to fully understand your rights and obligations regarding parental leave i.e. what entitlements are available to the employee, what notice needs to be given by both parties, and how to fill out the application form
paid parental leave is government funded, not paid by the employer, however an employer can provide other entitlements on top of that
maintain good communication with your employee during their pregnancy and parental leave
utilise ‘human resource best practice’ and be as flexible as the business and workload permit
understanding the needs of parents – particularly when they first return to work – is important. Employees can request changes to their terms and conditions of employment at any time and employers have a duty to consider any requests. Parents often find having flexible work options enables them to better balance their work and family commitments
provide an adequate space and break times for breastfeeding mothers who have returned to work, where possible
if your employee wants to work from home, discuss who will pay for the consumables i.e. phone calls, postage, printer ink.
There are clear benefits to business in retaining experienced employees. Parental leave not only supports parents around the time of birth or adoption but encourages their continued participation in paid work. |
