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.

The point is that either he is entitled to this leave or he is not, under your company policies and the law. If he is entitled to it then he is entitled to it. It’s not cheeky or out of order to take the leave you are entitled to. It’s healthy and shows you have good boundaries.

Leave requests should only be denied if there are business critical circumstances (e.g. the head of accounts can’t book the week off just before the end of the tax year because then the accounts won’t get done and the company could be penalised financially). It doesn’t sound like this is the case because ‘over the course of the year he might not do everything we want’ set against his entitlement to leave isn’t a business critical argument.

The fact that your company only works as well as it should if no one takes their full leave entitlement is the problem.

As a line manager I would actually be using this as a prompt to have a conversation with my team and those higher up about how we can ensure everyone does take their leave and understands that they are entitled to it. If workloads are too high to allow for that then that needs to be addressed.

The research on 4 day weeks and flexible working suggests that flexibility and time off aids productivity.

I assume the holiday amount and policies were known to him when he accepted the job, or beforehand?

YABU, and a nosey Parker. This really is none of your beeswax. You come off quite jealous and superior in your OP.

As long as she’s been there for a year she can take the annual leave she’s entitled to
all completely fair !
what is also fair is if she wants time off here and there for anything at all in her work time then it is also only fair that every hour taken is part of her parental leave also
I suggest you ensure all sick leave is accurately recoded / covered by sick notes also just in case she is not able to take her parental leave yet.
Im sure people wfh are also monitored rigorously for their performance / attendance also ?
Rights work both ways

Thanks for the thread!
I am a manager and responsible for staff issues in our small organisation - thanks to this thread I'm going to make sure all our employees are aware of this entitlement as I don't think any of them know about it.

Parental leave is a fab idea. I've found it doesn't always work well though. I used to work with someone who would always request 4 weeks over the summer holidays, a month before the holidays. Every year, she was told no and offered September or October but she needed the summer holidays for obvious reasons. Unfortunately so did half of the team and the leave calendar was always full.

I never did understand why she didn't just request it earlier!

Parental leave, annual leave, unpaid leave, whatever kind of leave is very much the beeswax of someone's line manager.

Only insofar as when it occurs. They can’t stop it from happening.

And has been mentioned, parental leave can not be denied, only deferred.

What is actually done on this leave is nobodies business.

And all the people saying he’s dine things without his kids with his AL, so what? You can use AL for whatever you want.

HunterHearstHelmsley
That sounds like a management issue to be fair and the person being last minute.

It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone (parents or managers) that parents are going to need to make arrangements for school holidays.

Someone I know said their company spreads the school holidays leave our across the team once everyone puts their leave requests in at the start of the year. That way nobody ends up working all of them (and paying childcare) whilst others get most of them off. It seemed like a fair system.

Why would he be granted unpaid leave if he isn’t entitled to parental leave in the first 12 months?

Unless your organisation has odd policies then the answer would be a big fat no at most companies.

You need to talk to your manager / HR about what to say to him. It’s utterly bizarre he’d think this was going to be agreed. It would be if he was entitled to parental leave but he isn’t.

I am a manager and responsible for staff issues in our small organisation - thanks to this thread I'm going to make sure all our employees are aware of this entitlement as I don't think any of them know about it.

Anecdotally parental leave is frowned upon in many work places. It is an entitlement but that doesn’t always help if they tell you it’s too busy in the school holidays and you have to defer to outside the holidays.

It’s pretty rare that people use it ime.

Tell me you’ve never been a line manager without telling me you’ve never been a line manager

Why would anyone be granted unpaid leave in the first 12 months unless it was some sort of emergency? Only time I've heard of it was when people were stuck abroad due to flights being cancelled

The only reason I can think of is that it was agreed before he started as they were desperate for him to work for them and he wouldn’t accept the holiday entitlement. I have some sympathy for that I wouldn’t want 25 days either having been used to more.

I’d have just got rid at end of probationary period as this attitude towards holidays was clearly evident during.

It’s going to become an issue. Also I think you have to be much stronger in not allowing leave that they are not entitled to, unpaid or not, surely the needs of the business are the priority for you as line manager. If this person cannot fulfil their role and are taking leave willy nilly, just get rid while you can.

If the extra leave if effecting the company and other staff, you don’t have to approve it. He can ask till he is blue in the face but you can say no if it doesn’t work for the team. Just because you are entitled doesn’t mean it can be so.

I don’t think I could approve it if it wasn’t entitled to.

No one has asked for this though in 20 or so years of line management 🤷🏻‍♀️

Sorry, didn’t see that this was their line manager. And I have been a line manager, for 15 years, although I’m not now. Thanks for your snap judgement though.

Still I don’t see the issue, it’s a good thing that people are working more flexibly now and making companies pay for their responsibilities to families and employee mental health. If what the employee is doing is within the bounds of their contract then they should be able to do it without judgement.

So OP your situation is pretty simple for now, colleague has not been there a year so is not entitled to unpaid parental leave. You simply need to make this clear before they “spend” any more days.

The problem will obviously arise next year as they will be entitled to it by then. However, that gives you time to think about how to deal with it.

Do you need to change the way you bill clients perhaps, so it doesn’t assume X days or hours are worked? What do you do about part time employees - or don’t you have any?

Do you need to speak to clients to find out if they are happy to have someone on their team who is likely to be unavailable for extra weeks? If clients are not happy then you may need to explain this to colleague and that this will affect what projects he is staffed on. However IME clients are generally fine as long as there is cover.

Do you need to tell colleague that you will only approve parental leave to be taken at certain particular times of year when there is more cover available and/or it will matter less to the clients’ businesses ( you are entitled to do this as an employer)? This will prevent him from taking AL for odd days and then using unpaid PL for family summer holidays.

Ultimately your job here is to protect the business’s interests, within the law. If it is genuinely causing business issues then first consider if they are solvable (eg change in billing approach). If they are not solvable then make him defer the leave to when it is least inconvenient for the business, and explain it will impact his performance/progress at work.

I think they are not necessarily being U as parental leave is unpaid so they have to take a financial hit if they want to use leave like this. But I would be encouraging them to make any application for parental leave asap (I don’t think you can insist), so you can make sure the business won’t suffer when they are off, and also reminding them that if necessary parental leave can be postponed for up to 6 months, so they should absolutely not be booking holidays etc until it’s been approved.

I work in the public sector. When a staff member has a year's service and is entitled to Parental Leave, no problem. Before that. any unpaid leave has to be for a legitimate reason and can only be taken when ALL normal annual leave has been taken. So you have to manage with your leave, when it's all used you can apply for unpaid but there would have to be a good reason or it would be refused.

Oh and beware of “survivorship bias”, I personally agree that managing a house and small kids on only 25 days leave is bloody miserable, and expensive- things have changed for the better and quite rightly.

Maybe try reading the OP again?

because first of all, you missed the bit where OP said she was the line manager

then you missed the bit where OP says it will cause problems with billing customers for colleague’s work (“I don’t see the issue”)

Then you missed the bit where OP says they are planning to attempt to take parental leave even though they aren’t entitled to it this year (“if what the employee is doing is within the bounds of their contract”)

I’ve never heard of parental leave so had to look it up…. Seems like a useful benefit especially for school hols. But in practice I suspect it could be a pain especially if you have several workers all wanting leave.

Surely when this person applied for the job the annual leave entitlement was made clear? And they accepted the job? They really can’t moan about it now! If their holidays are that important to them, and I know many people who go away every 8 weeks, then surely they could have negotiated at interview?

Also, during the probation period, they would only be able to take a set amount pro rata? When I worked the probation period was 3 months so you would only have been able to take annual leave that you were entitled to for that period of time. And no more.

If you are their line manager, surely you can refuse unpaid leave? And make it clear that the holiday entitlement was clearly stated. We all like our holidays, but if they are off on unpaid leave it might be that someone else can’t take their holiday entitlement. And it’s going to end up with bad feeling all round. They can apply for parental leave but extra unpaid leave on top of that is very cheeky. Hopefully they won’t like being told no and will leave…

parental leave is unpaid so they have to take a financial hit if they want to use leave like this

He isn’t entitled to parental leave.

Companies employ people because they can make more money out of them than their salary. If everyone just took unpaid leave willynilly it impacts negatively on the business performance.

Completely agree with the poster above saying life is miserable on 25 days. Low holiday entitlements stop good people applying for jobs. Maybe this is why they’ve ended up with him.