When it comes to supporting your family, work shouldn't be something that gets in the way.

Understanding the different forms of leave available and when they apply can be difficult, so the HR Suite’s Caroline Reidy joined The Hard Shoulder to explain the system.

“A lot of our legislation comes from European directives that we get a timeline, usually two years to implement,” she said.

“Those European directives and that whole focus has been very much on enhancing family friendly legislation to enable parents, particularly in the first two early years, to be able to take as much time as they would like with their newborn child. [...]

“The key issue is a lot of the leave is unpaid leave, so that’s the barrier for the person sometimes in wanting to take it.”

Ms Reidy said that, depending on the age of the child, leave must be negotiated with an employer.

“For example, parental leave is one option that somebody maybe would want to take,” she said.

“But the company can say, ‘You need to take it in six-week blocks’.

“They can’t say no full stop, they can defer it on an occasion that’s really difficult for them to take.”

Female boss leading corporate meeting. Image: Alamy

According to Ms Reidy, reasonability is the defining feature when it comes to laws surrounding these negotiations.

“There’s a requirement to be reasonable from an employer perspective and there’s also a requirement to be reasonable from an employee perspective,” she said.

“So, you’ve to always kind of go, ‘Is that reasonable?’ - there’s a give and take.

“We always say to employees, as soon as you know you want to take it, even though you might only have a notification period of six or four weeks depending on the legislation, engage with your employer.”

However, Ms Reidy said that employees are of course entitled to take certain types of short notice leave in the case of emergencies.

Main image: New parents admiring new born baby boy. Image: Connect Images / Alamy. 6 October 2017