Preparing For Family Friendly Workplaces

Several long-awaited pieces of legislation aimed at creating a more family friendly workplace received Royal Assent last week and once in force, these will extend the current period of redundancy protection for parents, allow the parents of babies requiring neonatal care to take periods of paid leave and provide carers with a week of unpaid leave per year. Whilst these do not come into effect immediately, now is a great time for employers to prepare for when the new employment rights come into force.

Increased Redundancy Protection for Parents

Where an employee is on maternity leave, shared parental leave or adoption leave and is at risk of redundancy, employers must give them first refusal over any suitable alternative vacancies. At present, this right only exists while on the relevant leave, however, the legislation will significantly extend the protected period. For pregnancy, this protection will now cover employees from when employers are informed of the