Work-life balance and flexible working are important to all hotel owners and their employees, even more so when they start a family.
Hotels are always under pressure to provide quality service 24/7. The rules below regarding maternity/paternity leave mean that hotels need to plan ahead to ensure that they are well prepared for employees taking advantage of their entitlement to time off.
You will know well in advance that an employee is preparing to take maternity/paternity leave. This is the time to make plans for covering the work of the absent colleague. Can the work be shared among others – consider this before automatically recruiting a temporary replacement. Ensure that support is shown to the employee taking leave, don’t make them feel that they are “letting people down”, and finally, consider keeping in touch (KIT) days.
Maternity/Paternity - The Facts
Who qualifies for maternity leave?
All expectant mothers are entitled to 26 weeks of ‘Ordinary Maternity Leave’ and 26 weeks of ‘Additional Maternity Leave’. It does not matter how long they have worked for you to qualify and the two weeks after child birth are compulsory after.
Eligible for Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP)?
A pregnant employee qualifies for SMP provided she has:
- at least 26 weeks' continuous employment with you extending into the 15th week before the expected week of childbirth
- average weekly earnings (AWE) at or above the lower earnings limit for National Insurance contributions (NICs) - £95 where this falls in 2009-10
- provided you with confirmation of the pregnancy - a form MATB1 or an equivalent document issued by her midwife or GP
- given you 28 days' notice of the date from which she wants to start her SMP
SMP
SMP is paid at a rate of 90% of there weekly earning for 6 weeks and the lower of £123.06 per week or 90% of there weekly earnings for the next 33 weeks.
Paternity
The current entitlement for fathers is two weeks leaves. This can to be taken in a block after the birth of the baby and has to finish within the first 56 days.
New government legislation is set to come into force in April 2010, with effect for parents of babies due from 3 April 2011. This will allow fathers to benefit from up to 26 weeks' additional paternity leave if the mother of the child returns to work before the end of the maternity leave period to which she is entitled. This will be available during the second six months of the child's life and may be paid if taken during the mother's statutory maternity pay period.
There is a common misconception that both the mother and father could potentially be off for 6 months at the same time. This is NOT the case, the 6 month offering to the father is instead of the mother. However there are probably more examples of couples working together in the Hotel sector than any other service industry. Therefore it is more likely that these will be taking the full 12 months leave in future rather than the normal time a single parent would have..