Hi,

We have an employee whose baby is due on the 29th October. She has 19 days of holiday allowance left for the year and would like to take all of it before she goes on maternity leave. She works mostly from home and wants to keep working for as long as she can however, and so would like to take all of her holiday through October and the beginning of November – this means she would be on holiday (not maternity leave) when the baby is born. Is this ok? Can she start her maternity leave straight after her period of annual leave, by which point her baby might be up to three weeks old? Or is there a reason why the period of maternity leave has to start from the day the baby’s due?

Please help!

Many thanks,

Rosie