Pre-family leave meeting invitation

Before an employee starts their maternity, adoption or shared parental leave, it’s worth having a meeting with them to discuss the final arrangements for their leave.

Pre-absence meeting

An employee can be absent from work for up to a year on maternity or adoption leave, and for up to 50 weeks on shared parental leave. Therefore, shortly before they start this leave, it’s worth having a meeting with them to discuss the final arrangements for their absence. In particular, this is the ideal time to discuss how the handover of the employee’s work is to be managed, including whether their work is to be divided amongst several colleagues or is to be passed to one person who will be providing dedicated cover.

Other matters for discussion

Other issues that it can be useful to discuss at this type of meeting include:

• how you’ll maintain contact with them during their absence, including the means of contact, how often it’s likely to occur, the possible reasons for contact and who will be their point of contact, e.g. their line manager - you’re entitled to maintain reasonable contact with employees on maternity, adoption or shared parental leave, such as to discuss key business developments
• the possibility of their working keeping in touch (KIT) or shared parental leave in touch (SPLIT) days during their absence - employees on maternity or adoption leave are able to agree with you to work for up to ten KIT days during their leave without bringing that leave to an end and without loss of statutory maternity or adoption pay, and employees on shared parental leave can agree with you to work for up to 20 SPLIT days during their leave without bringing that leave to an end and without loss of statutory shared parental pay (and SPLIT days are in addition to the ten KIT days)
• how the employee’s annual leave entitlement will be managed while they’re absent - their annual leave will continue to accrue but you might want them to take at least some of their outstanding accrued annual leave before their start their maternity, adoption or shared parental leave, particularly where that leave is to begin towards the end of your holiday year. If you do, unless the employee is willing to agree to take annual leave, you’ll need to comply with the rules set out in the Working Time Regulations 1998 requiring you to give notice to take annual leave which is at least twice as long as the amount of leave required to be taken. Another alternative is to see if the employee wants to extend their absence from work by adding annual leave on to the end of their maternity, adoption or shared parental leave.

These are all covered in our Pre-Family Leave Meeting Invitation letter.