Legal advice: Employee may take flexible leave after childbirth
Employees are entitled to at least ten weeks of maternity leave after giving birth. Since 1 January 2015, it has been possible to take the remaining maternity leave on a flexible basis after a mandatory leave of six weeks from the date of birth.
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They had to take this leave consecutively before 1 January 2015. The aim of this scheme is to allow employees to determine for themselves how they combine work and care duties after childbirth.
Based on the current scheme, the employee now has the option to choose to take the remaining leave part-time. Despite the fact that the total size of the maternity leave remains the same, it is possible to spread the remaining maternity leave over a longer period. The leave can be spread over a maximum of thirty weeks, calculated from the moment the employee takes the leave in installments.
Request
Employees must submit a request to take maternity leave flexibly to the employer no later than three weeks after the delivery. Employers can only reject such a request if compelling business or service interests dictate otherwise.
In principle, you decide for yourself whether you want to use part of your maternity leave flexibly. After all, your employer cannot simply refuse this.
