Working mums running out of annual leave

Due to the coronavirus pandemic a large percentage of working mothers have already used their annual leave entitlement, for example where they have had to take time off to support home-schooling during the lockdowns. With family support networks also being heavily affected due to isolation requirements etc. employers are encouraged to be supportive regarding childcare needs during the summer holidays. Options include:

• allowing the employee to work, or to continue to work, from home if that helps with childcare and assuming that the role can be undertaken remotely
• agreeing a temporary flexible working arrangement with them, which employers can do outside the statutory flexible working procedure, such as reduced or flexible hours or amended start and finish times
• granting a period of special unpaid leave
• permitting them to use some of their paid annual leave entitlement from the following holiday year - but this risks simply pushing the problem into a future period, rather than resolving it
• enabling them to take statutory unpaid parental leave if they’re eligible - the provisions enable employees who are parents (including birth and adoptive parents and those with legal parental responsibility) and who have been employed for at least one year to take up to four weeks’ parental leave per year (or more if agreed otherwise), up to a maximum of 18 weeks in total, and this can be taken up until the child’s 18th birthday. However, parental leave applies to each child, not each job, so the employer will need to check what parental leave an employee may already have used with a previous employer. Normally, employees must give at least 21 days’ notice to take parental leave, but employers can agree to accept lesser notice in the current circumstances.