How to Prepare for an Employee Going on Maternity Leave

In this blog, we will discuss preparing for an employee going on maternity leave and steps plan for maternity leave.

Index:

Prepare for an employee going on Maternity leave

Step-by-Step Plan for Maternity Leavee

• Set up a meeting with HR
• document outlining all duties and responsibilities
• Create a transition plan
• Select the best replacement(s) for your employee
• Communicate to your team
• Celebrate with a sendoff
• Establish a return to work plan
• Welcome back letter

It is an essential part of every organisation to provide parental or maternity leave for 26 weeks. Before providing the leave employer and employee has to follow compliance and numerous processes along with arranging the facilities for pregnant employees. 

Let’s see the preparation for an employee going on maternity leave and steps.

Prepare for an employee going on Maternity leave

According to the Maternity Benefit Act, 2017 companies with 50 or more employees offer maternity leaves for up to 26 weeks for individual eligible employees. During maternity leave employees’ jobs are secured, and no need to pay any amount for leaving. After completion of the leave, an employee can return to the job without any penalty or loss of pay.

So, when an employee starts a plan to go on maternity leave, you need to go through all processes smoothly without any confusion. Because there are lots of processes, which you have to follow, such as shifting the duties of other employees and others. When you are aware that an employee is pregnant or expecting a baby, congratulate the employee and get confirmation, then you should follow these steps, which help you to flow smoothly without any stress.

Step-by-Step Plan for Maternity Leave

There are steps to follow the plan for maternity leave – 

• Set up a meeting with HR –

  Employee meetings with HR can help your employee to understand the company’s policies and benefits that you offer based on policy.

• Document outlining all duties and responsibilities –

  The process of the daily task or routine needs to be created in detail, along with all activities and work. And a list of contacts external and internal of the company should be described in detail, which can provide a piece of brief information for other employees who will work or join in the place of an absent employee.

• Create a transition plan –

  You may allow shorter hours to your employee as maternity leave. If your company has more than 50 employees inclusive of all genders, then you need to also provide a creche facility so that employees can come back to work after their maternity leave is over. 

• Select the best replacement(s) for your employee –

  Here you can hire a new temporary employee to work or inform the existing employee who is familiar with your work and business. You can distribute the work between existing employees, which will help you to reduce the workload and work stress.

• Communicate to your team –

  After that, you need to update your team on what to expect, and the outline details have to be provided to the team and other team members. They have to discuss how to distribute the task to the other members or training if needed, which they need to do as soon as possible because pregnant employees can help and be involved in that. 

• Welcome back letter –

  Send a welcome back letter to the employee and recall their return date and timing. So, it will help you to get the update from the employee side.

• Establish a return to work plan –

  Before coming back to the employee, you need to create a back-to-work plan for when maternity leave will be over. In this plan, you can include the information of work, way to work, information about the new product if any, new process along with the training and any other relevant information that can help the employee get back to work.

This is the end of our discussion on how to prepare for an employee going on maternity leave. Let’s know your other questions and opinions on this topic. Mention below the comment box.

Related Post –

Indian holidays in 2022

Payroll Process Checklist