Running your own business requires the ability to juggle several things at once, particularly when finding ways to reduce operational costs. So being approached by a member of staff asking about parental leave could catch you off guard. Employee requests like this are probably not on your everyday agenda, but there is no need to panic.

Complying with employment law may seem like an additional concern in these challenging times but it is important to be up to date regarding legislation. Dealing with requests for parental leave does not need to be complicated, and it is often simpler than you think to manage your obligations yourself - saving you time and money as well as retaining a happy workforce.

What is parental leave?
Parental leave is about helping your employees who have young or disabled children. An employee must only request it if they are going to be taking the leave to care for the child, which means looking after the welfare of a child and can include making arrangements for the good of a child. For example, an employee might take parental leave to accompany the child during a stay in hospital or to check out new schools.

How does it work?
Parents are entitled to unpaid parental leave for each child of 13 weeks per year, to be taken in blocks of up to four weeks, until the child if five years old.

Parental leave can be taken at any time up to the child's fifth birthday, or in the first five years of placement in the case of adoption. Parents of disabled children can take up to 18 weeks per year up to the child's 18th birthday. The right to parental leave is applied per child, and the parent does not have to live with the child in question in order to be eligible. It can only be taken after one year's continuous service at a business.

How can it work within your business?
Parents who want to take their parental leave typically have to give 21 days notice and this leave must be taken on multiples of one week (unless the child is disabled in which case it can be taken on individual days). This should help you in accommodating requests alongside running your business. However if an employee's requested term of parental leave would cause serious disruption to your business, you can delay it.

To do this business owners must write to the employee within seven days of receiving their notification, explaining why you need to postpone their leave, and confirming the new start and end date of the period.

If an employee request leaves you in any doubt, it's important to remember that you can ask for evidence that they are either the parent of an eligible child or have parental responsibility. Examples of this evidence include; the child's birth certificate, adoption papers, or disability living allowance payments. However, do ensure that you are reasonable with your requests for evidence, for instance, you shouldn't need to ask for these documents each time the employee makes a request for this leave.

Finally, remember that a staff member remains as one of your employees whilst on parental leave, and so terms of their contract including contractual notice and redundancy terms still apply. This ultimately means less paperwork for you, as you won't be required to draw up a new contract for parents within your company making use of this leave.

For further free, practical advice about parental leave and other areas of employment law, visit www.businesslink.gov.uk/employingpeople [1]