Maternity and paternity leave
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How Loch Law can help
Whatever requirements you may have, our team of expert employment lawyers can advise on all pregnancy and maternity-related issues. Whether it’s helping you to devise relevant policies that comply with statutory requirements, or providing checklists that ensure you follow due process, Loch Law can help.
By working closely with dedicated HR Consultants from our sister company Loch HR, we can also offer advice on how to manage staff absences, while ensuring that your organisation’s approach to family matters is conducive to a sustainable corporate culture. Handling this issue properly is imperative to retaining existing staff, while also providing enhanced benefits that can attract potential new employees.
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Common family and pregnancy-related issues
The increasing possibilities open to employees when configuring their work/life balance can pose a number of problems for employers, including:
Flexible working requests: An employee returning from maternity leave is entitled to make a flexible working request, which may include working from home or amending their start and finish times. While there are eight separate legal reasons to refuse a flexible working request, you will need to show evidence to substantiate this – it is not enough to simply reject the request.
Maternity cover:Â Navigating problems that arise within the organisation during parental leave; for example, when the person providing maternity or paternity cover performs better than the original employee.
Risk assessments: Addressing situations in which staff become unable or unwilling to carry out certain types of work during pregnancy. Health and safety legislation requires that organisations undertake risk assessments for pregnant employees and new mothers, and employers may risk claims of discrimination if this is ignored.
IVF treatment:Â Understanding that IVF treatment appointments can carry the same weight as any other medical appointment, in terms of granting employees permission to attend.
Managing absence: It’s important to keep staff on maternity/paternity leave up-to-date with professional life in order to avoid isolating them, which can result in a discrimination claim.
Redundancy: How to manage any redundancies and dismissals without incurring disputes and claims, in relation to staff who are trying to conceive, are pregnant or are on parental leave.
