Maternity Leave Dilemma: Can Earned Leave Be Combined? Seeking HR Insights

Dear HR Experts, I have recently come across an issue raised by one of my female employees: whether we can combine earned leave with maternity leave. Could you please share your views on this matter as soon as possible?

Thank you.

Yes, if the female employee has enough leave balance in her account, she should be allowed to combine both leaves. This would enable the mother to have enough time to nurture her newborn.

Dear HR Experts,

I have recently come across an issue raised by my female employee. Can we club earned leave with maternity leave? Requesting all of you to share your views on this as soon as possible.

Clubbing Leave Policies

First of all, examine your own leave policy/rules regarding what it says about clubbing. Otherwise, earned leave (EL) and medical leave, Leave Without Pay (LWP) can be combined with maternity leave as it is permissible in many organizations. However, casual leave (CL) is normally not clubbed. I have not come across any establishment not permitting this kind of clubbing of EL with ML.

Regards,

In addition to maternity leave, a female employee can avail of childcare leave, in which her earned leave, medical leave, etc., can be included.

Yes, it is a continuation of maternity leave due to ill health. Extended leave (EL) can be considered as a special case.

In continuation of your maternity leave, you can very well combine it, subject to availability in your leave account. If not, on genuine grounds, you can request the management to grant advance EL, which can be adjusted in the next year. I fully agree with Mr. Varghese Mathew and Mr. Gurumurthy.

Regards,
Adoni Suguresh
Sr. Executive (Pers, Admin & Ind. Rls) Rtd
Labour Laws Consultant

Combining Leave Types with Maternity Leave

Entitled earned leave/privileged leave and casual leave/sick leave can be combined with maternity leave.

I have corrected the spelling and grammar errors in your input. Please let me know if you need any further assistance.

Regards

Please guide me on the following matter. I'm working in a pharmaceutical company as an HR.

1. One of our employees has gone on maternity leave, and after her six months of leave, she applied for an additional 2 months of leave.
2. For the extra 2 months of leave, she has requested to adjust her earned leave (EL), which she accumulated by working only from January to April 2018 (took maternity leave from May to October 2018 and used earned leave from November to December 2018).
3. As per my understanding of the act, for the next year (2019), she will only be eligible for earned leave for the months she was present at the factory, which is January to April 2018 only. However, she is questioning her eligibility for the applied earned leave for November and December 2018. She wants to know if she can calculate next year's earned leave with those two months included.

Please advise me on whether she is eligible for earned leave calculation for those two months as well.

Thanks & Regards,
Prathilokesh