Decide the organisation's approach to ordinary parental leave

Key points

  • Employees who meet the eligibility requirements are entitled to take a defined amount of statutory unpaid ordinary parental leave to care for a child for whom they have parental responsibility. While employers' provision must not fall below this, they are free to provide for more generous entitlement to ordinary parental leave, including payment for time off on ordinary parental leave.
  • The employer's rules and procedures on taking ordinary parental leave can be the subject of a collective or workforce agreement, where the terms laid down in the agreement are incorporated into affected employees' contracts of employment. Otherwise, there is a statutory fallback procedure, which includes requirements relating to notice to take parental leave and sets the maximum amount that can be taken in one year.

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