The countdown is well underway: many of the UK’s working parents expecting or adopting a baby/child on or after 5 April will benefit from the new shared parental leave right. Marian Bloodworth, Employment Team Partner, Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP, comments on how shared parental leave is a challenge for businesses but also an opportunity.

For the first time, parents will have genuine flexibility as to how they divide their caring responsibilities. Parents who qualify will be able to split up to 50 weeks of leave and 37 weeks of shared statutory parental pay in whichever way suits them best, which may mean taking time off together, or at separate times. 

Jo Swinson, Employment Relations Minister believes that shared parental leave will kick-start a change where fathers feel empowered to take time off to look after their kids and not feel constrained by outdated stereotypes. A recent BIS survey has shown that many fathers regret missing out on key milestones, such as their child’s first words or first steps. The government also sees the new right as an essential tool in the fight to address the issues holding women back at work.

To what extent is this true? Although by law an employer cannot deny a pregnant employee or a woman who has taken maternity leave a promotion for that reason, there remains a concern that taking time out for childcare purposes affects female career progression. The gender pay gap also continues to be an issue despite concerted attempts by many employers to address it.

The opportunity

Shared parental leave may well go some way to addressing these problems – provided men take up the new right. Many men genuinely wish to play a greater part in the raising of their children and those who take SPL could be at the forefront of cultural change. Employers making recruitment or promotion decisions will need to acknowledge that both men and women will be entitled to take leave for child-care purposes, which should help in levelling the playing field.

One of the key features of shared parental leave is the flexibility it allows. Where parents qualify, they can share the leave entitlement with their partner in a way that suits them best, which may includea continuous period of leave, i.e. one block, or discontinuous periods of leave, where they intersperse periods of leave with periods of work. The ability for women to return to work in between periods of leave may mean that they can be present at key times for their employer’s business (such as year-end or other busy periods), and as a result, take advantage of work opportunities that might not have been available to them had they remained on maternity leave.

The challenge

However, as with any new right, the success of shared parental leave will depend on the ability of employees to both understand their entitlement and on their ability to afford to take it. Whilst it is a simple concept in practice, many employers are finding that the complex notification and eligibility requirements are making it hard to implement in practice.

In addition, the ability of employees to request discontinuous leave patterns means that employers need to have good systems in place for managing the requests and the leave patterns that are granted. Employees are entitled to ask for up to three blocks of leave provided they give the right amount of notice each time (8 weeks). They can make a request for a single block at a time or can request the various blocks upfront (ie a discontinuous leave pattern).

By law an employer must grant leave where it is requested as a single block. Where an employee requests a series of blocks of leave, an employer can refuse the request if they are not able to accommodate it. In this situation, they can discuss an alternative arrangement with the employee, the employee can withdraw their request, or the employee can take the total amount of leave requested, but in one block, rather than a discontinuous pattern.

The financial equation

In terms of pay, the government's current position is that there is no obligation on employers to enhance statutory pay for employees taking shared parental leave (£139.58 per week from April), and that as both men and women can take SPL neither sex is disadvantaged as a result of such an approach. This financial trade off may become the deciding factor for many working parents looking to take SPL – which one of them can afford to take the time away from paid work.

There is also a challenge around pay for those employers who currently enhance statutory maternity pay – as their employees may also expect the same for shared parental pay. Many employers would like to be able to enhance shared parental pay, but are concerned that take-up levels of the new right may well be high which would have significant financial implications – particularly in male dominated businesses. However there are also employee relations implications of not enhancing pay in circumstances where other family leave rights such as maternity and paternity leave are enhanced.

Employee engagement

Employers could see shared parental leave as a distinct opportunity – anduse it as a way of giving force, or refreshing, their diversity and inclusion agendas. Those who publicly embrace shared parental leave may well find that they have increased employee engagement as a result, and are more attractive to new recruits.

We may be on the cusp of cultural change at work and home. Employees genuinely want more from work than 12 hour days and set considerable store by work-life balance, which increasingly involves spending time with their children while they are very young. However, they do not want this at the expense of their career prospects.

Whether the introduction of the new right will achieve its aim of levelling the work playing field remains to be seen, but it seems likely that at the very least it will require both employers and employees alike to take a fresh look at the way in which work and family commitments can co-exist.