Parental Leave
Employees, who become a parent of a child, are entitled to at least 10 consecutive days of unpaid parental leave, which should begin the day that their child is born.
Note: An employee will only be able to claim benefits for parental leave if they have been employed for at least 13 weeks before the date of application for parental benefits.
Commissioning Parental Leave
This leave applies to parents using a surrogate. The primary caregiver will qualify for 10 consecutive weeks of unpaid commissioning parental leave, while the other parent will be entitled to parental leave.
The employee must notify the employer in writing of the date on which they intend to go on parental or commissioning parental leave, as well as their expected date of return. Such notifications can be captured on SimplePay using the employee notes function described in the following article:
Whilst on parental or commissioning parental leave, the employee is entitled to claim a certain amount from the UIF. The amount the employee may claim is reduced if the employer continues to pay them a portion of their salary during this period. For this reason, parental and commissioning parental leave are recorded differently to other leave types on SimplePay and the process is described in the linked article below:
Please note that as the employee is still employed, the accrual of annual leave is unaffected by maternity leave.