Overview
Both male and female workers have the individual right to be granted paid parental leave upon birth, adoption, child fostering in the case of foster parents, or legal custody of a child, to enable them to take care of that child. Parental leave entitlement is for four (4) months per parent until the child reaches the age of eight (8) years.
Click here to view the official source.
Parental Leave is different from Maternity or Paternity Leave. Click here to view information on booking Maternity and Paternity leave on Talexio.
Permissions
To request leave, employees must have the "Request Leave" permission. By default, employees can only request vacation leave, whereas admins can book a variety of leave types, including sick leave, maternity leave, paternity leave, injury leave, and others. These leave types can be added to your company's account. To modify the leave types available to your employees, see instructions here.
Admins or users with both "Request Leave" and "Approve Leave" permissions, as well as the ability to book Parental leave, can still request these leave types, even if the "Allow user to request" toggle is turned off.
How are Parental Leave entitlements given to an employee?
Since the Parental Leave entitlements are given based on the age of the child of the employee, no one global entitlement can be set. This means the entitlements must be given per employee, following the steps highlighted in this article.
Parental Leave is given by default on Talexio as a Leave Type. It should not be deleted or edited due to specific logic relating to Parental Leave connected to the default leave type. If this has been deleted or edited, please contact the Talexio Support Team to assist you.
How should Parental Leave be requested?
Parental leave can be requested like any other leave. Permissions and settings may be set up to allow employees to make the request for leave themselves, which would then be approved. Alternatively, someone may raise this on their behalf on Talexio after a request for Parental Leave has been received outside of the system.
When making the request, Talexio will use paid entitlements first. If the request goes beyond the paid entitlements, the system will create the request for the following dates as unpaid, as shown in the example below.
Employees who do not have a fixed schedule (casual or irregular employees) will have their daily number of hours based on a 13-week average, according to the hours included in Payroll.
If there is no Payroll module, you will need to manually enter the number of hours they take off each day when booking Parental leave.
Why is the Parental Leave in my payslip not the full hourly rate?
The applicable payment rate is the Married rate established for the Sickness Benefit for the year when Parental Leave was taken.
If you see a different leave type at the Married rate established for the Sickness Benefit for the year, this will be because the leave type was originally set as Parental Leave and was amended to another leave type. This will need to be changed back to Parental Leave as the system refers to that specific leave type as Parental Leave, even if the label is changed.
Is Social Security deducted during Parental Leave?
Social Security (National Insurance) contributions are not deducted during both the paid and unpaid portion of parental leave.
What happens when unpaid Parental Leave is taken?
During the paid portion of Parental Leave, bonuses and leave entitlements will continue to accrue. However, during the unpaid Parental Leave, the employee will not be entitled to any benefits, and no Social Security (National Insurance) contributions will be payable for that period.