Rights

The Parental Leave section of the Employment Relations website gives a good overview of a person's rights to take unpaid parental leave from their jobs when they are having a baby or adopting a child under five years old.

These rights are provided by the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987.

A Parental Leave Calculator is also available on the Employment Relations site.

Recording Parental Leave

Parental Leave can be recorded using the LWOP (Leave without Pay) leave code. You can enter "Parental Leave" in the reason field so you can identify it as parental leave later.

Holiday Pay

Annual Leave continues to accrue when a person is on Parental Leave, however the dollar value accrued is zero (as the person has no earnings). If the person receives a final pay, or Holiday Pay payment, no Holiday Pay will be paid for the period of LWOP, as no earnings will have accrued.

However when this annual leave is taken, it will be paid at the person's current rate (because it is higher than their accrued rate). If this is not what you want to pay, you must do a manual adjustment to their annual leave balance.