Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
    • OHW Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
    • OHW Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Enhanced payShared parental leaveMaternityPaternityPay & benefits

Most employers that offer enhanced maternity pay will also offer enhanced shared parental pay

by Rob Moss 6 Aug 2014
by Rob Moss 6 Aug 2014 Enhanced shared parental pay could drive up the number of fathers taking leave. REX/Burger/Phanie
Enhanced shared parental pay could drive up the number of fathers taking leave. REX/Burger/Phanie

Most organisations that offer their staff maternity pay above the statutory minimum will also enhance shared parental pay, according to data from XpertHR and Personnel Today.

Of the HR professionals whose organisations had decided to enhance shared parental pay, 75% said they would mirror the enhanced maternity pay offered to mothers. This is likely to drive a higher than anticipated take-up of shared parental leave among fathers.

Shared parental leave regulations will come into force on 1 December 2014 and mean that working couples with babies due on or after 5 April 2015 will be able to share leave and pay, provided each parent qualifies for leave and pay in their own right. Similar rights will apply for adoption.

Shared parental leave resources

If an employer pays enhanced maternity pay, must it also enhance pay to employees on shared parental leave?

Shared parental leave: XpertHR Benchmarking data

Shared parental leave and pay FAQs

Shared parental leave webinar: Personnel Today on-demand video

Maternity pay and leave: XpertHR survey 2014

Half (52%) of those polled during last month’s webinar, Shared parental leave: Preparing your organisation for the new right, did not know whether or not their organisation would enhance shared parental pay.

Three HR professionals in 10 (29%) said they would not enhance shared parental pay, seeing as they do not enhance maternity pay.

But of the remaining sample (those whose organisations currently offer enhanced maternity pay), 56% said they would also enhance shared parental pay.

Sarah Jackson, chief executive of Working Families, said: “These are really encouraging findings and we hope that many more employers will see the business benefits of offering enhanced parental pay.

“Shared parental leave will only be a success if fathers are not significantly financially worse off when taking it and when their employers are wholly supportive of them doing so.”

Ed Bowyer, employment partner at law firm Hogan Lovells, said: “Businesses may be waiting to get a sense of what their competitors are likely to do, but they will need to decide their own policy sooner rather than later.”

He added it was “encouraging” that most employers who enhance maternity pay and have already decided their policy are also intending to enhance shared parental pay: “This is likely to mean that take-up of shared parental leave will be greater than has been the case for additional paternity leave, where paid leave has very much been the exception rather than the rule.”

Just one in seven of those surveyed said they were “well” or “very well” prepared for the introduction of shared parental leave. Full data can be found on XpertHR Benchmarking.

Deciding the shared parental pay offering is a particular challenge. If a female colleague benefits from an enhanced maternity pay package, then employers could face discrimination claims from men seeking to receive enhanced pay during their period of shared parental leave.

Sheila Attwood, XpertHR pay and benefits editor, said: “Enhanced shared parental pay could encourage more fathers to take time off. The key for employers – particularly those that don’t yet know what level of shared parental pay they will offer – is to have their policies in order soon, so that families can plan ahead.”

The research is based on a sample size of 1,323 people, 99% of whom are HR professionals, responding to a live poll during the Personnel Today webinar on 15 July 2014, which is now available on demand.

XpertHR Benchmarking subscribers can access the full results of the survey, allowing them to look at particular industry sectors or employer size. The data shows that larger businesses are more likely to plan to enhance shared parental pay, but they are also more likely to be undecided.

Additional reporting by Michael Carty.

Rob Moss
Rob Moss

Rob Moss is a business journalist with more than 25 years' experience. He has been editor of Personnel Today since 2010. He joined the publication in 2006 as online editor of the award-winning website. He specialises in labour market economics, gender diversity and family-friendly working. He has hosted hundreds of webinar and podcasts, most recently on the challenges created by the coronavirus pandemic. Before writing about HR and employment he ran news and feature desks on publications serving the global optical and eyewear market, the UK electrical industry, and energy markets in Asia and the Middle East.

previous post
Compulsory equal pay audits: firms will be forced to publish results
next post
Civil service pay scheme linked to age was discriminatory, finds ECJ

You may also like

BT workers vote for strike action over pay

1 Jul 2022

Gender pay gap ‘won’t close until 2151’

27 Jun 2022

PwC to award inflation-busting pay increase

27 Jun 2022

Graduate salaries rise sharply as search for talent...

27 Jun 2022

‘Ministers must increase employee mileage rates’ as costs...

23 Jun 2022

Six findings from the national living wage review

22 Jun 2022

‘General strike’ threat looms as unions voice pay...

20 Jun 2022

The heat is on and so is some...

17 Jun 2022

Bill promising neonatal leave and pay presented to...

15 Jun 2022

Google to pay $118m to settle equal pay...

15 Jun 2022
  • NSPCC revamps its learning strategy with child wellbeing at its heart PROMOTED | The NSPCC’s mission is to prevent abuse and neglect...Read more
  • Diversity versus inclusion: Why the difference matters PROMOTED | It’s possible for an environment to be diverse, but not inclusive...Read more
  • Five steps for organisations across the globe to become more skills-driven PROMOTED | The shift in the world of work has been felt across the globe...Read more
  • The future of workforce development PROMOTED | Northumbria University and partners share insight...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2022

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2022 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
    • OHW Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+