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Booking parental leave 9 months in advance...

Tann

We have a team member who is wanting to secure a period of parental leave 9 months in advance, and in the middle of the summer leave period. As it stands most team members haven't booked leave yet and we would have no idea at this time the extent to which this will impact the overall business as a whole (small SME).  Has anyone experienced similar please?  I know this is a statutory entitlement, but wonder what would others consider reasonable in this case?

  • in reply to Tann
    Then i would be cross training another member of staff quickly - if the company is that dependant upon that member of staff and training someone up takes that long - what would happen if they were unexpectedly off work long term ?

    You have over 6 months to get someone else to be able to cover that role whose own role can then be covered by a temp - the parent has every incentive to help train that person and give them a hand over pre that 4 weeks leave and you have then built resilience into the organisation.
  • in reply to Keith
    I'm not sure it's practical HR management to delay the employee's parental leave to another time (term time?) - presumably the same cover issues apply, regardless of when the booking is made. It's just delaying the absence.

    As Ian says, the business needs to build in a level of resilience in staffing, given there's the possibility of multiple parents requesting their statutory right to parental leave, long term sick leave, etc.

    As an aside, at my previous employer the majority of employees did not have children, and therefore there was always a rush to book September off for cheaper holidays! So it's not always the case that everyone wants to book school holidays off.