What you must do
When an employee applies for parental leave and meets the eligibility requirements, you must:
- let them know what their parental leave entitlements are
- respond to their request within 7 days if you need more information, which they have 14 days to provide
- approve their request within 21 days
- confirm the leave arrangements in writing.
If they don’t meet the criteria for parental leave, you can choose to give them a period of unpaid leave. This is known as negotiated carers leave.
You can’t decline parental leave requests if they are eligible, but you can decline to hold a key position open if:
- your employee will be gone longer than four weeks
- you can prove the position is crucial to your business
- you can prove it’s not possible to find a short-term replacement for your employee.
You decide what a key position is based on:
- the size of your business or organisation
- the training period or skill required in the job.
If you can't keep the position open, you must give your employee a 26-week ‘period of preference’ when their parental leave ends. During this period, if you have a vacancy for a job that’s similar to their previous one, you must offer it to them before anyone else.
Once you know how long your employee wants to be gone, you can consider how you’ll fill their position. You can:
- hire someone on a fixed-term agreement to cover for parental leave
- hire a contractor
- redistribute their work across other existing employees.
What you need to know
If an employee or their partner is having a baby or taking permanent responsibility for the care of a child under six, they might be entitled to parental leave.
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Your employee can visit Employment New Zealand’s website to see if they are eligible for payments. They can apply for parental leave payments through Inland Revenue.
Employees who can get parental leave payments can choose to use other types of paid leave they're entitled to, immediately before they start using parental leave – even if this is after the child’s arrival.
Examples of other types of paid leave are:
- annual holidays
- alternative days
- special leave
- time off in lieu.
If your employee is the birth mother, and is eligible for primary carer leave and parental leave payments, they will still be entitled to these if the baby unfortunately dies before or after birth. If your employee needs more time off after this, they could take bereavement leave if they are entitled to it. Alternatively, they could take further time off work if you both agree.
The birth mother is still entitled to the full 26 weeks of primary carer leave and payments, if they have given birth to a baby who will not remain in their care. For example, during adoption or surrogacy.
Workers who aren't eligible
Employees who don’t meet the criteria for parental leave are not entitled to any. For example, they might have worked for you for less than six months or haven’t done an average of 10 hours a week.
However, if they meet the parental leave payment threshold test and will be the primary carer of the child, they might apply for negotiated carer leave so they can receive parental leave payments.
You don’t have to agree if certain business reasons apply, but you must reply as soon as possible and within one month. If you say no, you must tell them on what grounds you refused and why those grounds apply.
How it works
Parental leave can be:
- taken by one parent, or
- split between them, as long as they’re both eligible.
For a pregnant employee, primary carer leave starts on the date their baby is due or the date their baby is born, whichever comes first.
Primary carer leave can start up to six weeks before the expected due date. It can start earlier if:
- they have a baby who was born preterm (before 37 weeks’ gestation)
- agreed by the employee and employer
- directed by a doctor or midwife
- directed by the employer, if it becomes too hard for a pregnant employee to do their job safely or adequately and no other suitable work is available.
In any other case, an employee’s primary carer leave will start on the date they become the child’s permanent primary carer or earlier if they become primary carer of a preterm baby.
Special leave for pregnant employees
Pregnant employees can also take 10 days of unpaid special leave for things like doctor’s appointments, scans and antenatal classes, before taking primary carer leave.
Partner’s leave
Spouses or partners are entitled to either:
- one week of unpaid leave if they’ve worked for you for six months for at least an average of 10 hours a week
- two weeks of unpaid leave if they’ve worked for you for 12 months for at least an average of 10 hours a week.
They can take this leave between 21 days before the expected birth, or the date their partner intends to become the primary carer, and 21 days after - unless you agree otherwise.
This leave is in addition to any other parental leave they’re sharing with their partner.
Care of a child at short notice
When an employee has a child come into their care at short notice they should stop working straightaway. This may not always be possible – for example, if they need time to sort out work and childcare arrangements.
An employee may need to take permanent care of a child at short notice if they’re the primary carer, and:
- they’re the spouse or partner of the birth mother, the birth mother dies or is excluded from the child’s care, and the child is under one year old.
- they take permanent primary responsibility for a child under six years old. For example, through an arrangement like adoption, whāngai, or a Permanent Care agreement with Oranga Tamariki.
In this situation they can choose a date to stop work and start receiving parental leave payments after they become the primary carer. The date they choose must be within a reasonable period from when the child permanently came into their care.
Returning to work
Your employee needs to let you know in writing at least 21 days before the end of their leave if they’re going to return to work or not.
If an employee isn’t sure about coming back to work, you could talk to them about:
- flexible work arrangements – for example job sharing, to help keep valuable experience within your company.
- breastfeeding or expressing milk at work.
- any relevant workplace policies you have in place.
- their sick leave and annual holiday entitlements.
- incentives to encourage them to return – for example, a cash bonus after they have been back at work for a set period of time.
If an employee worked keeping in touch days while on parental leave but is not returning to work, their gross earnings for calculating annual holiday payments in their final pay will not include these payments.
This is because if they do not return to work after parental leave, their last day of work was the day before they started their parental leave.
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