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Maternity Leave & Annual Leave entitlements

Fiona

Hi there,

We have an employee who took maternity leave starting in 2021 and into 2022. 

She has a number of annual leave days carried over from 2021 and this year and we're wondering if we can put a time limit on when she should use those days into 2023?

From reading a previous post here, it was suggested maternity leave should be taken directly after her maternity leave but that wasn't the case here as a previous manager made an agreement with the employee and I wasn't in this role at the time.

Any advice on best practice would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Fiona 

Parents
  • Hi Fiona, there are no laws about when an employee can or can't take their accrued annual leave following maternity leave (other than of course that they can't be taken concurrently) so it is a matter of company discretion. A company is entirely within their rights however to stipulate when an employee can or can't take annual leave.

    It sounds like this employee has already started back at work following maternity leave, is that right? And presumably has not been given any instruction so far as to how and when they need to use their accrued annual leave? They may already have ideas in mind about how they want to use their extra leave, so it may be a slightly more difficult conversation at this stage than it would have been before they returned from maternity leave, however as a first step, I would suggest coming up with a proposal that would work for the company and presenting it to the employee with a view to working together to come up with a mutually agreeable plan. Do you have any company policy regarding carrying over annual leave? Could that be applied here? Companies often require that if leave is carried over from the previous year, it is used within the first 2 months of the year for example, so you could apply that policy and ask that she uses it within the first xx months of her return?
  • in reply to Helen
    Thanks Helen, that is really helpful.
    We are based in Dublin but I can't see any laws in Ireland about this specific thing either.
    In this case, the employee has already started back working following maternity leave so we will speak with her about how it can work best for both sides. I realise now it's something for me to add to our maternity leave policy so that it is outlined clearly for all involved in future.
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  • in reply to Helen
    Thanks Helen, that is really helpful.
    We are based in Dublin but I can't see any laws in Ireland about this specific thing either.
    In this case, the employee has already started back working following maternity leave so we will speak with her about how it can work best for both sides. I realise now it's something for me to add to our maternity leave policy so that it is outlined clearly for all involved in future.
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