Employers and employees should communicate clearly with each other about:
- how they'll keep in touch when the employee is on paternity leave
- the employee's return to work
Keeping in touch
Before they start statutory paternity leave, the employee and their employer should agree how they both want to:
- keep in touch
- cover the employee's work while they're on leave
- arrange the employee's return to work
By law, while an employee is on statutory paternity leave their employer must tell them about any:
- promotion or other job opportunities
- redundancies
- reorganisations that could affect their job
Returning to work
When an employee returns to work after statutory paternity leave, by law their job and its terms must remain the same.
If an employee wants to change how they work
An employee might want to change how they work after having a child. For example, their working hours or working from home.
They might have the right to make a flexible working request.
Time off for emergencies
By law, an employee has the right to a reasonable amount of unpaid time off to look after 'dependants' in an emergency.
This could be to help their child or partner when there's an unexpected:
- illness
- injury
- change in care arrangements
Find out more about time off for dependants
Taking more time off
There are ways someone can take more time off to be with their child.
Ordinary parental leave
Parents have the right to 'ordinary parental leave'. This is unpaid time off work to be with their child.
Each parent can take:
- up to 18 weeks for each child up to their 18th birthday
- a maximum of 4 weeks a year for each child
Find out more about ordinary parental leave
Shared parental leave
Eligible parents can get up to 50 weeks of shared parental leave.
Find out more about shared parental leave
Contact the Acas helpline
If you have any questions about paternity leave, contact the Acas helpline.