New Entitlements and Change for Parent/Carer Employees

This year’s amendments concerning employment law have introduced a number of new entitlements and changes for employees who are also parents or carers, these include:

• remote work;
• additional leave;
• overtime work;
• secondments; and
• flexible working.

Additional days leave for parent/carer employees

a) two days or 16 hours
An employee who has one or more children under the age of 14 will be entitled to an additional two days leave, or 16 hours, per calendar year. The employee decides in the first application to the employer (electronic/paper) whether it will be measured in days or hours. Only one employed parent/carer can use this entitlement.

b) five days of care leave
An employee will be able to take five days of care leave per calendar year in order to provide personal care or support to a family member or person living with them due to serious medical reasons. A family member in this case is considered to be: son, daughter, mother, father and spouse. Therefore, care for siblings, grandparents and other family members is only possible if they live with the employee.

The employee must apply for such leave at least one day in advance and must indicate:

• the name of the person who requires care,
• the reason for the personal care; and
• the relationship of the family member, or the home address of another person, which should be the same as that of the employee.
• The period of this leave counts as part of the period of employment.

Flexible working

An employee raising a child under the age of eight may apply for flexible working arrangements.

Flexible working is understood as: remote working, as well as: intermittent working hours, a shortened working week, weekend work, flexitime, individual work schedules and reduced working hours.

Such an application can be submitted on paper or electronically at least 21 days before the planned start of ‘flexible working’.

The application should indicate:

• the child’s name and date of birth;
• the reason for using flexible working arrangements;
• the start and end date of the use of flexible working arrangements; and
• the type of flexible working arrangement the employee plans to use.

The employer must inform the employee (by paper/electronic means), within seven days of receiving the request, either of its acceptance or the reason for refusal, or of another possible start date for “flexible working”. An employee may request (by paper/electronic means) to return to their previous type of work at any time when the circumstances requiring ‘flexible working’ change.

An employee who has requested ‘flexible working’ is protected, as making such a request cannot be grounds to terminate the employee’s contract of employment – with or without notice.

Consent of a parent/carer employee

An employee who is raising a child under the age of eight must consent to:

• overtime work;
• night work;
• intermittent working hours; and
• delegation outside the permanent workplace (e.g. to another city).

Remote working for a parent/carer employee

An employee who is a parent or carer raising:

• a child under the age of four;
• a child with a certificate of moderate or severe disability;
• a child with a certificate of severe and irreversible disability, or an incurable life-threatening illness
• that arose during the child’s prenatal period of development or at birth; and
• a child requiring early support of child development, special-needs education or remedial classes

should, as a rule, after submitting an application to perform remote work, obtain consent from the employer, unless remote work cannot be performed due to organisational reasons or reasons resulting from the type of work performed by the employee.

The above applies to both “permanent” remote work and occasional work of up to 24 days per year.

Additional protection for parent/carer employees

The new legislation protects any employee who is a parent or carer, as the employer cannot:

• prepare for the termination the employment contract, with or without notice;
• terminate the employment contract, with or without notice (unless it is justified to terminate the employment contract due to the fault of the employee, and with consent from the company trade union representing the employee);

An exception to the above protection is a declaration of bankruptcy or liquidation of the employer. The employer must prove the existence of these reasons.

The protection period extends from the date of applying for the leave in question until the end of the leave. The earliest the protection begins is:

• 14 days before commencing the maternity leave part or the conditional maternity leave part;
• 21 days before the start of parental leave, or part thereof; or
• seven days before the start of paternity leave or part thereof.