Everything you as manager need to know about maternity and paternity leave

If one of your employees is pregnant, she is legally entitled to at least 16 weeks maternity leave. The maternity leave starts between 6 to 4 weeks before the calculated birth date. Your employee can choose – based on her condition and ability to cope – for how long she continues working, but at the latest she needs to go on maternity leave 4 weeks before that date.  Sometimes you will find someone who wants to carry on longer, as they feel fine. No matter what arguments they present, do not agree to this, and send your employee off home with a smile. The leave is there for a reason. It protects both your employee and her unborn child. Also, if anything should happen, the employer can then be held liable.

From the day that the employee gives birth, she has a minimum of 10 weeks maternity leave. If your employee only went home 4 weeks before the calculated birth date, then she is entitled to 12 weeks. The total leave is in all cases 16 weeks, and that is the minimum: the leave cannot be shorter, but can be longer. That is the case when the baby arrives later than the calculated date. Assume that your employee gives birth 2 weeks late, then she has the right to 10 weeks from that date, and her total leave period is therefore 18 weeks.

There are special situations, when nothing happens as planned. In these cases, there are slightly different, additional rules that apply:

• Illness
  A pregnant employee can also fall ill. If this happens in the period of 6 to 4 weeks before the expected birth, and her maternity leave has not yet started, then her sick days are deducted from her leave.
  
  
• Twins and other multiple births
  An employee who is pregnant and has twins, triplets or more babies, is entitled to 20 weeks maternity leave. She can start the maternity leave 8 to 10 weeks before the calculated delivery date and then still has 10 weeks after the births.
  
  
• Hospital admission
  If there are complications, it may happen that the baby has to be admitted to hospital during the mother's maternity leave. In that case, the number of days that the baby is in the hospital is added to the maternity leave, up to a maximum of ten weeks. This does not apply if the baby is in the hospital for less days than the mother was overdue in giving birth.
  
  
• Death
  If the employee dies during or after childbirth, then her right to maternity leave transfers to her partner. This is voluntary, so the partner decides for themselves if they want it to apply. It is useful for you as a manager to be aware of this, so that you can offer it and organise it; someone in this situation is unlikely to think of it for themselves.
  
  
  

Partners of employee who have a baby also have the right to paid leave before and after the birth of their child. It has had various names, including childbirth leave or partner's leave. The rules are contained in the Law on the introduction of Extra Leave for Childbirth (WIEG).

If one week of paternal leave is not enough, then from 1 July 2020 employees can request additional paternal leave. This leave is unpaid, but the employee receives a payment from the UWV (Employee Insurance Agency), which the employer has to request. The additional paternal leave can last up to a maximum of 5 weeks (5 x the number of working hours per week). The employee can also spread this leave over a longer period.

The preconditions for taking additional paternal leave are:

• the employee first has to use up the paternal leave for partners;
• the employee must take the additional paternal leave within 6 months, and the child must be born on or after 1 July 2020.
• the employee must request the leave from you at least 4 weeks before it starts in writing;
• the request must state how the employee wants to spread the leave.

Useful to know: if your employee has asked for parental leave, then these hours are not deducted from it. So if someone has a contract for 40 hours, and has 8 hours parental leave per week, so is only working 32 hours, the paternal leave is still 40 hours.

Do you want to know exactly what you must and what you must not do when an employee tells you that she is pregnant? Here is a useful step-by-step guide.