Does anyone use parental leave?

[IcedBananas]

Does anyone use parental leave? If so how do you use it? How do employers react to these requests? Are employers asking you to use your annual leave up first? Is there somewhere you can track how many weeks you’ve had per child (there’s a max of 18 weeks)? I’m thinking of supplementing my annual leave with some
of this leave each year as I’ve had to go full time now (I was part time but work gave me a full time role to complete anyway!). This seems like it could offer a happy medium. I’m in the office full time but taking a weeks unpaid leave each year to ensure we get some downtime as a family. I’ve only recently heard of this parental leave though and I don’t know it’s commonly used or how my employer might react. Anyone got any experiences? TIA

Yes I'm NHS and quite a few of us use it. We have a specific form to fill in and each time it asks how many weeks you've already used so I just save the last form and can keep track that way.

I used it when kids were pre- school just to take them out of nursery for couple weeks to spend more time with them, then to cover week they first started school, then as additional week off with them in summer, and recently to provide support at exam time for eldest.

Employer can't refuse it but they can say the time you've asked for doesn't suit and offer you an alternative so just be aware of that if it's during a shorter school holidays like October half term

I've not used it myself but some of my team have at my suggestion, it's not widely known about in my organisation.

I think it's always best to speak to them to agree it first before putting in the request as they can change their minds about the timing if they have a good business reason. Then if there is an issue you can discuss it and come to an agreement. I've always done this with my team and asked the team leader (not the staff member) to let me know how their work will be covered while they're off if it's at peak time.

The typical scenarios I've heard of are that someone wants parental leave in the summer holidays but because the team needs cover to run the service it means others can't take time off at the same time, so the employer delays the leave until September which defeats the purpose of having asked for the leave in the first place.

We use it, we put in a request like annual leave, but rather than ticking the box that says annual leave we tick parental leave. It has never been an issue, neither of us have had it turned down, but we’ve sometimes had to move dates slightly if someone else is on leave, just as we have had to with annual leave before.