To think this is not what parental leave is for?

[Friendlybreadbin]

I may well BU but interested in people’s opinions. My company offers a fairly standard 25 days plus bank holidays leave package. New colleague comes from a company where they had been for over 20 years and so had got up to 30 days, their old company also offered a ‘buy an additional 10 days leave’ package. Our company doesn’t. Having passed their 3 month probation period (where they also took a lot of leave) they are using leave days like they are going out of fashion, and have already had a skiing holiday and an all inclusive this year. As well as lots of other random days off, it’s seems rare they work a full week. Have been openly saying that they intend to take unpaid leave because they can’t see how they will possibly manage on 25 days when they were used to 40 days and asking how does anyone do that with kids? I have not dissimilar aged kids and have managed with 25 days for my whole career. There are no special needs or circumstances. Their job is flexible and from home.
AIBU that they should learn to manage within their holiday allowance that they accepted by contract? Or as the extra leave is unpaid is this an acceptable strategy? It seems to me they intend to exploit parental leave just because they feel entitled to more holiday than they are contracted to have.
Our company charges customers rates for their time and will therefore lose revenue as we can’t charge when they are OOO. I am their line manager.
I have managed people for 20 years and have never come across anyone with this attitude before, when I have managed people who have taken parental leave it has been for understandable reasons.

If you aren’t going to be able to service the clients assigned to him if he takes unpaid leave this summer, you can deny that request (subject to company policy). And it wouldn’t be unreasonable to do so if you don’t want a precedent set that it’s okay for any employee to take unpaid leave if they’d prefer more holiday than income.

However, you’re going to need some way of coping with it next year anyway. You may not have had anyone else request the time before, but you need to get your head around the legislation and work out a fair way of dealing with it. Presumably most parents would want it during school holidays, so making sure you have a plan to ensure you handle requests fairly (along with regular holiday requests), even if he’s the only one asking at the moment, will be important. And finding someway to manage client work loads so you can still deliver if people are out for longer than their standard 25 holidays probably needs to be a priority. Presumably you have plans in place for long term sick? Can you fashion something around those?

Perhaps this is something to talk to your senior management and HR department about more generally - could your policies do with a revamp? People in general do seem to be valuing flexibility more than they used to.

Yep. I took two weeks unpaid parental leave last year for me and DD to go to Florida.
wont need it this year, but already considering it next year for a big holiday I want to do with her.

No, it’s right. The parents where I work use it to get long summers off so they can be with their kids.

Well I guess you can always assess the unpaid leave plan when it comes in. I imagine that it would be approved after you had worked out staffing requirements at that time. Other staff will undoubtedly want official leave then. Perhaps he’d better be warned not to book flights.

There's a difference between unpaid leave and parental leave (which at your company sounds unpaid).

I don't have enough annual leave for my needs this year so am planning on taking 2 weeks unpaid leave. This isn't parental leave, which is paid leave where I work, for two reasons....

1. Parental, or dependents/emergency carers leave is for emergencies only, such as your child being sick, or husband needing help at home after a car crash. Once it's beyond a couple of days it's not an emergency and instead other plans should really be made, such as using annual leave. If you don't have enough annual leave left then it's unpaid.
2. I'm not a parent.

If she wants to take unpaid leave I don't see why that's an issue. If your company can't function with this happening then fair enough, but lives are changing so you might want to instead encourage a policy of flexible working and work/life balance to improve workplace moral and staff retention. Its just becoming more necessary and more beneficial to all parties.

But you do need to make this very clear whether this can be a regular thing (I'm assuming not) and be very clear this is NOT parental/carers/dependents leave if she's planned it in advance.

@FarmGirl78 you e mistaken and muddled up the leave, there was a government link to the leave further back

Try reading what I wrote.
The CF colleague has used a lot of al already to do things for himself such as a skiing holiday and days off while his kids are at school.
The argument seems to be that everyone should be allowed unpaid leave to be with their kids that's not what he's doing.

Some people like to live their life. Instead of working themselves to death. Our kids are only little for a short time, I spend as much time with mine as possible. As long as she's not calling in sick at the last minute and leaving you or her colleagues in the lurch, she's using holidays that she is entitled to use and unpaid leave. I think it's becoming a lot more common for people to prioritise family life over work life. We are becoming all too aware that we are easily replaceable in our jobs, but not at home. Good for her. I hope she is having a wonderful time skiing with her children or enjoying an all inclusive beach holiday.

I'm with you OP; if everyone else gets the exact same 25 days and is happy with it but this person is complaining about how little it is, then it obviously does upset the apple cart somewhat. They presumably knew the amount of annual leave they'd get when they accepted the job and still decided to take it anyway. To bitch and moan about it after the fact seems churlish, especially during a probation period.

I'm not mentioning anything to do with unpaid parental leave as I think that's been done to death at this point.

But you are his manager - he can't take the leave unless you approve it

You need to discuss it with your manager or your HR team.

The company's profits are not your issue - if the company supports the leave that's their decision. Your job is to manage it in line with what the company wants.

This employee is new, they have limited employment rights, the company can exert considerable control.

The attitude 'I managed on 25 days' is pretty old-fashioned. 25 days is quite crap, the world moves on.

I’m a teacher with 2 children. I’m sure you would all have a different opinion if me and my colleagues took 2-3 extra weeks a year off. It would mean your children would at best have supply, eating up the schools budget. If we all did it schools wouldn’t have money for any resources!
I’m sure someone is going to say we get enough holiday. True but I can’t afford to take them abroad in the summer, unpaid parental leave would give me the opportunity for a week in the sun, giving my children a wonderful experience that I couldn’t otherwise provide.

I assume you’re entitled to say no? If everyone in my team took an extra 10 days we would have to employ more people as the work needs to be done. You’ve got an entitlement to ask for parental leave, but assume businesses can say no. Especially if he’s taking a week to go skiing with mates.

Oh fgs, teaching is totally different, what the hell has that to do with anything? You can't say an office worker has to have only 25 days off because holidays are expensive

I've done teaching and office work.

I thought parental leave was unpaid and for emergencies? if this person is just using it as a/l, then it's unfair on those people without children as they are just essentially exploiting being a parent for more time off.

OP can say no to the generic unpaid leave request this year.

But an employer cannot say no to parental leave, they can say that a particular time does not suit, but they then have to offer an alternative within I believe six months.

Parental leave was first introduced in 1999, I have been in the workplace all that time and truthfully I have never come across anyone even using it

You have lost me, I am sure you have said you are his manager. In which case, step up and be a manager and tell him that you won’t be able to accommodate any unpaid leave this year. I am baffled at your comments about his intentions as if you h ave no say about it.

You - and the higher ups at your company by the sounds of things - need a better grasp of employment law and to refine your policies. All this talk of him being "entitled" and the expectation that his priority should be the business rather than his actual life is bizarre. If the business cannot afford to observe employees' legal entitlements to leave then it has no business operating. This outdated culture of inducing guilt in employees and an expectation that they will forego their entitlements to suit their employer needs to go. There are laws and there are contractual obligations. As long as he is making requests in line with those, he absolutely is entitled to take the leave. The issue this year is that he's planning to take more leave than he is legally or contractually entitled to and as his line manager you need to take charge of that situation. There's little point having a moan on MN and then passively letting him dictate to you how much leave he will have. If he's entitled to 25 days holiday and hasn't been employed for a year then of course he can't take 40 days and you need to address that with him. Next year you'll need to take into account the parental leave.

I'm definitely going to check up on parental leave now....I always thought it ended at age 5! I have 6 kids (one is 18 so I've missed that one), does that mean I get the allowance for each child? Not that I can afford to take time off unpaid, but its handy to know its there if I need it. I get a generous leave allowance at my job anyway (30 days + BH + 4 days extra off over the Xmas period) and we can buy days (which i guess is the same as taking time off unpaid, it just spreads the loss of earnings over the year), so ive never had to think about it!

Look at gov.uk for entitlement info. Yes, it can be for a holiday.

I find the whole idea of "entitlement" to unpaid leave very strange.

When you work for an employer, you're selling your labour for an agreed amount of money. Your sale is either for a specific workload (ie, per project) or a certain amount of time (ie, per diem). Some jobs are a combination, in which case the 'per diem' is the salary and 'project' pay comes as a bonus.

If you're on a salary, you can calculate your weekly, daily and hourly pay. This works because you are being paid for your time.

Therefore, it's utterly reasonable to say "Hey, Employer, I'm going to reduce the amount of time you're buying. Of course you won't have to pay me for the days I'm not working."

It's not being entitled, it's being perfectly rational. Assuming you work in a team with workflows and objectives, you'll need to arrange your times off so the work still flows and the objectives are met.

Some people seem to think you get paid for being there rather than the work you do. I once had a manager who actually made me sit for hours doing nothing as I "worked too quickly" 👀 That attitude was bonkers back then, and it still is!

Then request it. I did when I was term time.

Teachers are entitled to unpaid parental leave the same as anyone else. Up to 18 weeks per child until their 18th birthday. Max 4 weeks per child per year. You have to give notice and agree the time with the employer, but they can't say no, only defer.

Surely if you could afford that you would work part time?! Doubt anyone will take 4 years and given I've only ever met 1 person with 10 kids not sure it is a massive risk 😜

It sounds like she’s come from a culture with a really positive work/life (or just “life”) balance. It’s very important to people so I think you shouldn’t judge her for that. Judge her on what she’s producing when she’s in work. It’s not like she’s going off sick, she is entitled to the time she’s taking and it’s up to her when she takes it.

Agree with the post above- a business that can’t cope with someone being off for an extra week is not run well. People are away for all sorts of reasons at short notice- sickness, compassionate leave etc. this would be a pre-planned additional allocation of unpaid leave agreed in advance at a suitable time.

There are still posters joining the conversations showing they have no idea about the law.