Paternity leave

Soldato
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Just looking to get some other thoughts and input on this situation as I have absolutely no experience in the matter, either professionally or personally!

I'm an employer and one of our guys is expecting on 10th October. We're only a small team of 7 so we've been really flexible with scans, classes, etc, and haven't asked him to set a pat leave date (which is supposed to be decided on the 15th week of pregnancy, with 28 days notice to alter it).

His job is on-location, so requires travel and working away. This work is client-facing, so isn't easily cancelled or rescheduled; certainly not at cost to us, and potentially losing a client because of the disruption. When he isn't on location (ie no active jobs) he takes up a secondary role in the office that's below his experience/salary.

We have a job this Sunday with an overnight stay on the Saturday as it's 4 hours away. It's a 3 person job and we've got another 2 off on holiday but him and his wife are concerned he'll miss the birth. The holidays and job has been booked in for at least 2/3 months.

We would obviously feel terrible if he misses the birth of his child but what are we supposed to do? He also dropped something along the lines of "if the work was local then obviously it'd be easier as I could just leave". Trouble is even that is incredibly disruptive; the job would have taken months to organise and we'd have to start from scratch. Best case scenario is we would lose £2000-3000, worst case scenario is we would lose the client and the whole cost of the project.

Obviously this situation is much easier with office workers and the like where a client wouldn't even know if you left at lunch, but how does this work in such an on location/client facing role? How can we be "kind" over what could be the next 3/4 weeks without putting our business into jeopardy and losing income? Do people just literally get up and leave work whatever they're doing when they get the call?
 
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I'm an employer and one of our guys is expecting on 10th October.
Insert lazy joke here. I'm all about the low-hanging fruit, me.

On a serious note, over-reliance on one particular person who is completely irreplaceable (and/or nobody else can fill in/knows what he does) is a bad thing. We're the same tho, pretty much.
 
Either plan around him having to leave mid job or reschedule/lose the job.

Seems like such an odd situation. It's an event so it can't be rescheduled, and the "job" is a client that's worth up to £50,000 a year. Like I said we can't cover his time because 2 are off on holiday which was approved as there's almost 2 weeks to go until the due date.

He's basically saying he's not comfortable going as it's so far away, but we're really thin/empty on options! Surely you can't just not go to work in case?
 
Seems like such an odd situation. It's an event so it can't be rescheduled, and the "job" is a client that's worth up to £50,000 a year. Like I said we can't cover his time because 2 are off on holiday which was approved as there's almost 2 weeks to go until the due date.

He's basically saying he's not comfortable going as it's so far away, but we're really thin/empty on options! Surely you can't just not go to work in case?

If my kid was being born you’d not see me at work. I suspect this would be a lot of people’s attitude.

If this was a woman working for you and she went into labour would you ask her to stay on and work? Or send her away?

Sounds like poor planning by the business letting key members be on leave when the only remaining member is likely to be on pat leave.
 
5 people can do his job (including him, out of the 7). 3 are working Sunday, 2 are on holiday.
But only he can work with this client/secure this contract? I have no idea about your business, naturally, but can't you pull one of those other guys off if this particular project is in a critical make-or-break phase? They can't all be in the same position, surely?
 
If the client is so valuable then look to swap the worker with a different person who is available. Planning remote work for this person so close to the birth was obviously a poor decision.
 
To answer most of the above, all 3 people are working on the same job on Sunday, not different ones. I'm also pretty confident the job was booked in before they conceived! In hindsight the holiday shouldn't have been approved, but the best part of two weeks before seemed like a fair way off! To have someone sat around doing nothing of value for 4 weeks just in case they need to swap seems a bit excessive even with hindsight.
 
To answer most of the above, all 3 people are working on the same job on Sunday, not different ones. I'm also pretty confident the job was booked in before they conceived! In hindsight the holiday shouldn't have been approved, but the best part of two weeks before seemed like a fair way off! To have someone sat around doing nothing of value for 4 weeks just in case they need to swap seems a bit excessive even with hindsight.

I think you’re going to have to suck it up. Or send him with the expectation he downs tools and leaves at short notice, which he may not accept.
 
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