Working parents may be entitled to different types of leave, so it’s important that both employers and employees understand what’s available. This section outlines key entitlements along with guidance on keeping in touch (KIT) days, planning for leave, managing staff absences, and supporting a smooth return to work. It also covers common employer and employee concerns regarding leave entitlements and take-up. Understanding these concerns can help create a more supportive and well-organised approach to parental leave within SMEs.
Different types of leave and entitlements
There are different types of leave that enable expectant and new parents to take time to recover and care for their children:
- Maternity leave: Available to birth mothers for up to 52 weeks. Leave can begin up to 11 weeks before the expected due date.
- Adoption leave: Available to one parent adopting a child or having a baby through surrogacy, for up to 52 weeks.
- Paternity leave: Available to fathers or partners following the birth or adoption of a child, or through surrogacy, for up to two weeks.
- Shared Parental Leave: Enables parents to share up to 50 weeks of maternity or adoption l following the birth, adoption or surrogacy of a child.
- Parental leave: Each parent can take up to 18 weeks unpaid leave (maximum of 4 weeks per year) until their child turns 18.
Some types of leave are paid at a statutory level, and some employers may offer enhanced pay. To learn more about legal (statutory) leave entitlements and pay, please see this government website.
Did you know? Under the Small Employers’ Relief scheme, small employers can reclaim 108.5% of statutory parental payments paid to employees, if they paid £45,000 or less in Class 1 National Insurance (ignoring any reductions like Employment Allowance) in the last complete tax year.
Limited awareness of the Small Employers’ Relief scheme
Both awareness and take-up of the Small Employers’ Relief* scheme are low. In our survey of 2000 SME employers, only 10% of respondents had claimed from the relief scheme, 43% were aware of it, and a fifth knew about the scheme but had never claimed under it. Among claimants, 72% of SME employers reported it was helpful, while 28% felt it was not worth the administrative effort.
*Our data was collected before the rate of compensation was increased from
103% to 108.5% of statutory parental payments made to employees.Do you have any experience with the scheme? We would love to hear about your experience (see Contact)!
How do employees decide on how much leave to take?
When planning maternity, paternity, or adoption leave, SME employees have to consider a mix of personal and professional factors. Examples include:
- Financial security: The level and length of pay during leave are significant factors, especially for lower-income employees. Other considerations related to the household budget, like mortgage payments, childcare costs, and the partner’s income, also play an important role.
- Job security and career impact: Employees consider how taking leave will affect their job security, opportunities for promotion, and overall career progression (see Fear of job insecurity and negative career implications). They might also fear that the person covering for them might do a better job, making the need to return less appealing, if not redundant.
- Commitment to work activities, clients and colleagues: Employees often share concerns with their employers about the impact of their absence on the workflow, the workload of their colleagues, or – where relevant – the service provided to clients.
- Workplace culture: A Supportive workplace culture and knowing that their job is well looked after helps to ensure that employees worry less about work while on leave. On the contrary, a toxic workplace culture or asserting pressure on the employee to return to work can be very stressful, affect the employee’s health and result in not returning to work at all.
- Childcare availability: High-quality childcare providers often have long waiting lists and high fees. Childcare options are particularly limited for workers involved in shift work.
- Maternal, paternal and child health and wellbeing: Complications during and after the birth, mental health issues like postnatal depression, and a general lack of physical recovery can prevent a mother from returning to work as planned. A child with specific health needs, such as a premature birth, can necessitate more care, forcing parents to take leave longer than they initially planned.Fathers and other non-birth parents can also experience postnatal depression and need related support. As with postnatal depression in mums, it often goes undiagnosed, as the symptoms can look like the everyday stresses of having a newborn or stress at work.
- Partner’s availability: The amount of (un)paid leave the partner can take is often a key part of the decision-making process.
- Personal and family dynamics and preferences: Individual family situations and gender role values can also influence the decision on leave.
“We’d go bust, we’d lose our house if I took any more time off, quite frankly. So three months or nothing.” (Olivia, Small business employee)
“I really valued that I could have a year off for both of my children…I would hate to be in a situation where I could only take six months.” (Sian, Small business employee)
Supportive practices
Consider how far your organisation can go to support new parents through enhanced leave and pay beyond the statutory minimum. If this is just not feasible, there are many other meaningful and low-cost ways to support expectant and new parents during this period.
“In a dream world it would be nice to be able to support expecting and new mothers with more finance, to have an extended maternity policy, but it’s just not feasible for us at the moment and that is probably a drawback of being a smaller business” It is what it is, and we try to be supportive in every other way that we can be.” (Jackie, Small business employer)
What employees can do
- Communicate early: Let your manager or employer know about your pregnancy or plans for parental leave as early as feels OK for you, and keep them updated on any changes (e.g. a revised return to work date)
- Keep plans clear and up to date: Circumstances might change – share any updated plans to support continued effective planning and coordination.
