All permanent Wholegrain team members (regardless of gender) who become a parent, whether through childbirth or adoption, are entitled to take paid parental leave.

Maternity Leave

All new mums can take up to a year’s maternity leave. You don’t have to take the full year, but you must take the first two weeks following birth.

We will provide full pay for the first 3 months of maternity leave, after which it will default to the statutory maternity pay.

The earliest you can usually start your maternity leave is 11 weeks before your due date. Leave can also start:

  • The day after birth, if the birth is early
  • Automatically if you’re off work for a pregnancy-related illness in the four weeks before your due date

For more information visit the government guidelines on maternity leave.

Paternity Leave

New dads receive two weeks’ fully paid leave following the birth of their child (or date of placement if you’re adopting). It’s up to you whether you want to take two weeks together or have two separate weeks, but you must take the time within the first 56 days following the birth or adoption.

28 days notice is required if you wish to take some dad time.

For more information click here

Shared Parental Leave

New mums may choose to share their 52 weeks’ maternity leave with the dad, as long as it’s not the compulsory two weeks following birth. We allow shared parental leave in accordance with official government guidelines.

For more information click here

Unpaid Parental Leave

At Wholegrain, we understand that sometimes you need to take time off to look after your children. Unpaid parental leave is leave you as a parent can take to look after your child’s welfare eg to:

  • spend more time with your children
  • look at new schools
  • settle children into new childcare arrangements
  • spend more time with family, such as visiting grandparents

In order to qualify for parental leave an individual must:

  • be an employee
  • have been employed continuously by their employer for at least twelve months.

To request parental leave an employee should give at least 21 days notice, we would request this in writing.

If you wish to take parental leave straight after the birth or adoption of a child you should give 21 days’ notice before the expected week of childbirth or placement.

Parental leave should be taken in blocks of a week unless agreed otherwise with the employer. If the child is disabled, parental leave can be taken in days rather than weeks.

For more information please click here

Some Rules

You retain all your usual rights and protections while pregnant or on parental leave, including your right to accrue holiday. In return, we ask a few things of you.

Please advise us as soon as you know you or your partner is pregnant. This is doubly important for mums as there may be health and safety considerations and we’ll need to carry out a risk assessment.

Please advise us as soon as possible when you want your parental leave to begin, ideally, before the end of the fifteenth week before the week the little one is due.

We will do our best to accommodate the start date you choose, though we appreciate this isn’t an exact science so we’ll be as flexible as possible.

Before your leave is due to begin, we’ll sit down to discuss the arrangements for covering your work and opportunities for you to keep in touch during your leave, should you wish to do so. If you’re on maternity or shared parental leave, we may check in from time to time to see how you’re doing, but we’ll keep this to a minimum.

Return to Work

If you’re on maternity or shared paternity leave, please let us know when you intend to return to work. We would normally expect eight weeks’ notice. At this point, do let us know if you have any needs such as special working arrangements when you return, so we can plan for these accordingly.