A New Starter Drops A Bombshell

Kate 0:38

Picture this, it's a Monday morning. A new starter walks in for his first day. Lovely chap. You hired him three weeks ago. Genuinely pleased he accepted. You've got the welcome coffee, the laptop, the day one slot in the diary, the obligatory tour of where the toilet is. He sits down, he says, in the kind of polite, slightly nervous tone that tells you something has been on his mind. I should mention, my wife is due to give birth in eight weeks. I'd like to take paternity leave when the baby arrives. There is a pause. You smile. You say in the world weariest voice known to small business owners. Right, well, that's a quick conversation to be having on day one, isn't it? He laughs. You laugh. But internally, you are running the maths. Eight weeks from now is mid-August. He'll have been with you ten weeks. He's still in his probationary period. Two of your other guys are off in August. Six months ago, you'd have said, sorry, mate, you don't qualify. You need 26 weeks service. But you can't say that anymore. Because from April 2026, paternity leave is a day one right. He doesn't need 26 weeks. He needs to walk through your door. He has the right to take the leave. From day one, from this Monday. You did not see this coming. He did. He's been holding the conversation for the entire interview process. This episode is about the bit the blog didn't cover, what these conversations actually look like, what's leave and what's pay, and how to handle it consistently in a small business. The Welcome to the Hive. Hey there, welcome back to Buzzing About HR, the podcast for small business owners and HR professionals who want straight talking, plain English advice. I'm Kate, your host, HR Queen B, and someone who has had the awkward, so when did you actually find out? Conversation more times than I can count. With me as ever, preemptively maternal, is Hazel, our well-being officer. She is asleep on the only patch of sun in the office, untroubled by employment law. Today's episode pairs with the blog post on

Why Managers Need Better Scripts

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day one rights, linked in the show notes. The blog covers who qualifies, what for, and the legal detail. This podcast covers the bit the blog can't quite reach: the manager conversations. How you handle the new starter who tells you on day one. How you handle it when someone tells you in the interview. How you handle it consistently across multiple staff so you don't accidentally create a discrimination claim. The Employment Rights Act 2025 made paternity and unpaid parental leave day one rights from April 2026. That's a meaningful change, and most managers haven't had any training on what it actually means in practice. Kettle on, let's go. The Buzz. What's changed? Quick reset on what's changed. Until April 2026, statutory paternity leave required 26 weeks continuous service. If a new starter's baby was born in the first six months, he didn't qualify for statutory paternity leave. Some employers gave it as a goodwill gesture. Most didn't. From April 2026, paternity leave is a day one right. Two weeks of leave, available to fathers, partners, adopters, and intended parents in surrogacy from day one of employment. Same change for unpaid

The April 2026 Day One Shift

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parental leave, previously a year's service requirement. Now day one. That's parental leave, up to 18 weeks unpaid per child up to the child's 18th birthday, available from day one. Now, the bit that catches managers out. Statutory paternity pay still has different rules from statutory paternity leave. Leave is the time off. Pay is what you get during it. To get statutory paternity pay, the employee still needs to have been in employment for a relevant period. Specifically, they need to have been continuously employed for 26 weeks, ending with the qualifying week, the 15th week before the expected week of childbirth, and earning above the lower earnings limit. So in practice, a brand new starter has the right to take paternity leave

Leave Rights Versus Pay Rules

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from day one, but may not yet qualify for statutory paternity pay. This is the distinction that confuses everyone, including some HR people. Day one leave is universal. Paid leave depends on the qualifying conditions for pay. That distinction is the cause of about 80% of the confusion in this area. The hive check. The numbers, some numbers, around 7 in 10 new fathers in the UK take some form of paternity leave. The average length taken is just under 1.4 weeks of the two weeks available. Pre-2026, an estimated 4% of new fathers were excluded from statutory paternity leave because of insufficient service. Roughly 30,000 men a year, depending on hiring patterns. Day one rights are designed to close that gap. But here's the bit that should focus your attention. A 2025 EHRC study found that

The Stats Behind The Change

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one in three new fathers reported feeling unsupported or uncomfortable raising paternity leave with their employer. The most common reason, they weren't sure if their employer would react well. Day one rights mean the legal position has changed. The cultural position in many businesses has not caught up. Managers who handle this badly, not maliciously, just clumsily, risk creating discrimination concerns, retention issues, and grievance claims. Managers who handle this well retain people, build loyalty, and frankly, just behave like decent human beings. The Sting. Where managers trip up. Three places I see managers trip up on this. One, the gut reaction. When someone announces a paternity-related need, particularly early in their employment, some managers react with visibly or not irritation. Oh great, off already. Even a flicker of that and the new starter clocks it. That flicker across multiple new starters in different circumstances is exactly the pattern an employment tribunal will look at if a claim ever lands. You don't have to feel delighted.

Three Ways Managers Get It Wrong

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You do have to behave consistently and professionally. 2. Confusing leave and pay. Manager says, sorry mate, you've not got the service for paternity leave. Wrong. Now wrong anyway. He has the leave from day one. Whether he qualifies for statutory pay is a separate question. If you confuse those two things, and many managers do, you risk denying a statutory right. 3. Inconsistency. The boss agrees flexibility for one new starter and refuses it for another. The first one is well liked, the second one isn't. You have just opened the door to a discrimination claim. Day one rights and the conversations around them must be handled consistently. Not perfectly, consistently. The waggle dance, how to handle the conversations. Right. Three conversations, three scripts. Conversation one. The interview disclosure. Candidate says, I should let you know my wife is expecting in three months. What you say? Thanks for letting me know. That doesn't change anything for me. The role is offered on its merits and will work paternity leave in when the time comes. What you do not say? Oh, that's not ideal. What you do not say, we'd need to think about that. You do not need to think about it. The role is offered, or it isn't,

What To Say In The Interview

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on the basis of the role. Conversation 2. The day one announcement. New starter says, in week one, my partner is due in eight weeks, I'd like to take paternity leave. What you say. Congratulations, let's plan it. Two weeks of leave, taken when you choose in the first 52 weeks after the birth. Have a think about timing and let me know in the next month. What you also say, if it's relevant, I'd like to look into the pay side with you. The leave is yours from day one. Whether you qualify for statutory paternity pay depends on length of service and earnings. Let's check. What do you do not say? Are you sure now's the right time? What you do not say, wow, you've got some neck. Conversation three. The consistency conversation. You're sitting at your desk, three new starters in nine months, all with paternity needs. Stop and ask, am I treating these three the same? Same offer of leave, same paperwork, same supportiveness, same handling. If the answer is yes, you're fine. If the answer is, well, with this one I was a

What To Say On Day One

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bit flexible because we get on. With this one I was firmer because I wasn't sure about him. That is a discrimination risk. Catch it now, fix it now. Bonus. Write down a paternity leave handling page for your business. One page. What's offered, how to request it, how it's documented, who approves, keep it consistent. Then, when you have these conversations, you have a backbone. The Swarm. Mythbuster Parade. Myth one, they need 26 weeks' service for paternity leave. Wrong since April 2026. Day one right. You may still see this on outdated templates. Update them. Myth two. Paternity leave is the same as paternity pay. Wrong. Leave and pay are separate. Day one leave is universal.

Consistency Checks To Avoid Claims

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Statutory pay has its own conditions. Some employees will take leave they're not paid for by you, but may receive statutory paternity pay if they meet the qualifying conditions.

Mythbusting Templates, Records, Flexibility

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Some may take leave at full pay if your company has an enhanced policy. Three different things. Don't conflate them. Myth three. I don't have to keep records. Wrong. You should record requests, decisions, and dates. As we covered in episode 22, leave records are a six-year statutory duty. Paternity leave is annual leave's louder cousin in this respect. Myth four. Small businesses get more flexibility. Wrong. Day one rights apply regardless of business size. There is no minimum employer threshold. The honeycomb, your quick action list. Seven actions. Update your offer letter and contract templates to reflect day one rights from April 2026. 2. Write a one-page paternity policy. What's offered, how to request, who approves, keep it consistent. 3. Train any manager who recruits or onboards on the difference between leave and pay. 4. Update your interview script. Make sure no one is implicitly or explicitly discouraging family stage candidates from disclosing. 5. Log paternity leave the same

Seven Practical Actions To Take

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way you log other leave. Date, length, paperwork, decision. 6. If you've had paternity related decisions in the last 12 months, sense check them. Were they consistent across staff? 7. Pair this episode with episode 22. Holiday and parental leave are increasingly looked at together by enforcement bodies. Flying the hive. Right before I go. Most paternity leave conversations are not legally complicated. They are emotionally and culturally awkward, because we are dealing with a man telling you, sometimes nervously, that he has a baby coming. Treat the conversation like that. A human moment, not a HR problem. The legal change, day one writes, is just an opportunity to do this slightly better than you might have done 18 months ago. You are not losing rights. The employee is gaining them. That is fundamentally a good thing. If this episode helped, share it with another small business owner.

A Human Moment And The Closing CTA

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Send it to whoever runs your onboarding. Send it to whoever manages new dads in your business. Send it to whoever needs reminding that, oh, that's awkward timing, is not the right reaction. Find me at kateunderwoodhr.co.uk or email buzz at kateunderwoodhr.co.uk. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you haven't left a review yet, it takes 30 seconds. It genuinely helps. And it is easily the cheapest good deed you'll do all week. More satisfying than a biscuit with your tea. Not quite as good as cake. But nearly. Until next time, keep buzzing and take care of your people. Kettle on, standards up.