While in 2020 parental leave was still taken mainly by women, the trend has since reversed. Last year, 15,843 fathers benefited from parental leave compared to 12,934 mothers, according to figures transmitted by the Ministry of the Family to The essential.
With this democratization of parental leave, companies must organize themselves. If the employer can ask to postpone the leave to full time, he cannot refuse it unlike the part-time one. “One of my clients has to endure 27 parental leaves out of 400 employees. This causes real management complexity”, points out Lauriane Marlier, general manager at RH Lab.
Replacing furloughed employees can be a “challenge,” acknowledges Stephanie Cuny Maurice, human resources director at Autopolis. “However, we see this as an opportunity to improve our organizational flexibility.”
Parental leave often rhymes with replacement, whether by a person on a fixed-term contract or temporary employment, or the distribution of tasks between team members. “The replacement of parental leave is a subject for the organization which finds its solution on a case-by-case basis,” says ArcelorMittal.
At the automobile distributor, the most used option is part-time leave. “This allows parents to maintain a balance between their professional and personal lives while remaining engaged in their work,” adds Stephanie Cuny Maurice. Full-time leave is also popular, especially in the first months after the birth of the child.
In 2023, mothers mainly opted for six months of full-time leave (73.7% of them) and twelve months of part-time leave (15.8%). Among fathers, six months of full-time leave was also the most popular option (39.3%) and one day per week (35.3%).
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