Maternity and paternity rights: overview

There are statutory minimum requirements on employers covering:

Good practice guidelines

Employers may wish to offer more generous terms than the statutory minimum. If so, they must apply these equally to all employees to avoid any potential discriminatory practices.

Suggestions for good practice include:

Conduct informal discussions to find out details or any problems the employee may be dealing with - encourage issues to be raised informally first
Include references to maternity, paternity and adoption rights in equality, diversity and work-life balance policies. It is important that all policies complement one another so that the organisation has a coherent, inclusive and responsive approach
Integrate with the grievance procedure, giving the employee the right to appropriate formal and informal recourse
Embrace equality issues into policies to help motivate and retain staff and to improve performance. It is important to build a culture of trust, so that employees have confidence in raising problems and issues
Develop systems at work that ensure employees are not disadvantaged by taking maternity/paternity/adoption leave
Consider issues of continuity of employment following 'child-break schemes'
Train managers and supervisors to understand the organisation's provisions, the main legal obligations as well as individual responsibilities in delivering the policies
Signpost to further information - for example, staff handbooks, employment literature
Ensure any organisational change or planning is in consultation with staff and trade unions (if one is recognised)