Unlocking the Power of Digital Signature Lawfulness for Pregnancy Leave Policy

How to eSign a document: digital signature lawfulness for Pregnancy Leave Policy

hello and welcome to legal basics with sarah lo global and my name is cyan [Music] now for the human race not to go extinct we have to reproduce yes so that means people have to get pregnant people have to have children and the laws of labor have to facilitate that process of getting more humans so that we don't go extinct so on today's episode we're going to look at maternity and paternity leave and also sickly when a person has been unwell and they need some time to be a way to stay alive and come back and work and on those topics today we're joined by my colleague who is an expert in this matters i will let her introduce herself hi viewer my name is karo morioki i am an advocate of the high court of kenya with six years post-admission experience i work at the form of muslim company advocates thank you sian for having me you're welcome so now uh just take us through what is maternity leave how it works so maternity leave are is a brick for a female employee uh during pregnancy and childbirth so the law provides that maternity leave is supposed to run for a period of three months it can't be taken together with um annually but for maternity leave to actually kick in um what we need to remember is that we need to give a notice to the employer it's supposed to be a seven days notice and the law provides that that notice has to be in writing okay um additionally um the the law provides that if an employer requires the employee that is the female employee who wants to take maternity leave should provide a certificate of medical condition from a medical practitioner or a midwife well i find that funny honestly because pregnancy is the something that is easy to see it speaks well yeah i mean there's a big time in the baby in there i mean why would an employer need a certificate from a doctor to prove that i'm pregnant ah i guess well um [Music] in fact i have no answer i have no answer for that but i think it's um the idea of giving notice is basically to provide to just notify the employer whether the the instances where people don't show oh you just hear someone give back or you know yeah it's not very obvious right i don't even know whether that was the point it's just actually uh for purposes of giving the employer notice that hey i'm about to knock off for three months ah all right yes oh well and of course in all fairness there's also team rotation could look like they're fragmented they're nice round and round so how long is maternity leave okay maternity leave is supposed to run for a period of three months and um these three months i know people ask all the time is it three calendar months is it three uh months calculated in terms of the working days and the simple answer is that it's three calendar months okay um that an employer is entitled to all right yes okay so now in our previous broadcast about annual leave you said the employer has to give employees a minimum of 21 days with full pay correct and also now for maternity you also mentioned that a pregnant woman gets three months with full pay that is correct uh so so well when i look at it if a person has already taken their maternity leave that year do they do do they still get to have annual leave or that's it they get to have their annual leave they had not taken annual leave during the year the period of 12 months and the law actually provides that a pregnant woman who is going on maternity leave should not um for fate their annual leave okay so and that is why i said uh some people elect to take all of it together but the point is the three months that uh someone has been on leave plus the annual leave should all be paid full pay wow yes uh well it sounds like it's nice to be an employee it's nice to be pregnant you must have to be pregnant i mean we're looking at what almost five months of full pain yes that's interesting yes okay so um you you also mentioned uh paternity leave yes uh just take us through what a paternity leave so um it's it's basically the opposite of maternity leave for the for the man who is responsible for this pregnancy so they are entitled to two weeks of paternity leave with full pain why who knows the main reason is so that they can go get congratulations from their but i think the idea behind it is uh uh families are recognized under the constitution is it's i mean it recognizes the family unit as the basic unit of society and it's important also for the father to bond with the family it's a new family a new baby okay so i would say help around with the baby as well help help yeah many fathers would cross stones but i think that is the essence of uh paternity leave so that the family can bond ah okay okay and help the mother and help them help help more importantly to help the mother yes although what the law does not provide what you should do with your paternity will the paternity leave but um well i think men should father should stop going you know yeah i know so actually on that note i'm thinking uh when when when the rationale behind a maternity leave is so that the mother can heal physically and also bond with the child and and accommodate all these changes that have come into her life but now on this paternity leave that i am seriously frying uh well what what happens the guy this is congratulated he's always out here getting free whiskey being congratulated coming home at 3 a.m and just making life higher so uh oh well i think if they were helping it would be fine yeah but now if they were not helping it it could be worse yeah so i'm just thinking and probably this is not in the low maybe you'll make a comment about it but instead of this man staying at home for two weeks and coming home at 2 a.m every day can i write to his employer and say dear employer of my mister please have him at the office and then those two weeks pay send them to me okay this is this is my view the ones who are helping should get longer periods of leave oh that would be just those ones yeah yeah the others stay in the office and you feel free to write to the employer and ask for the pay for two weeks yes yes another two for the two weeks that he's working yeah take it as compensation for your pain and suffering amen but also i would like to ask for as far as paternity leave goes is it the employer to decide what they need as proof that this man truly had a baby because uh it could be his neighbor it could be his girlfriend it could be no baby yes so the law does not provide for how that should come into effect exactly but what i would think is that an an employer who wants to be sure would ask for something documentation like um about notification which is issued in the cause of admission of the mother in hospital um a birth certificate i would think would take longer yeah but maybe in this case uh um about notification should suffice ah okay yes all right so so basically if probably if the father does not have access to that kind of documentation maybe he would not be in a position to get paternity leave because he would need to prove it um assuming that is what the employer requires i would think uh not but it's it's his entitlement um but how how that is actually you know it is in practice um i believe it's just a matter of providing that notification if that is what the employer requires then you provide the notification i don't think that should be and you're off to go party for two weeks yes it's a man's world i do yeah well yes we should go through sickly yeah okay so sick leave um is an entitlement for an employee who falls sick and who has been in employment with that employer for a period of two consecutive months so what the law provides is that an employer who falls sick during that period is entitled to seven days of sick leave with full pay okay um consequently after the seven days lapse then what the entitled to is another seven days in the period of one year uh with half pay okay so there's no provision for what happens after the 14 days the seven days with full pay and the seven days with half pay so i think uh it's dependent on the specific agreement between the employer and the employee all right yes oh well it sounds like okay for a person can proceed on maternity leave and then maybe well get sick leave and then get iron you'll leave yes right yes yeah it can happen yeah it's not encouraged too it can happen uh they can all be combined together but i think what i would stress and of utmost importance is uh look at the agreement between the parties yes you're entitled to the three maternity leave yeah uh yes your entitled to live and you'll live yeah and for that matter so and you're also entitled to sickly so it's it's possible for all of them to coincide such that you know you you you've taken your annual leave depending on the agreement with your employer your maternity leave kicks in and then maybe you fall sick after that okay okay yeah god forbid so it's possible yeah but um um i think what the what i'm saying is um the agreement between the employee employee should kick in at all times okay yeah so the employer will require to be required to provide the requisite notices if it's for maternity for um annually and also for clip and for sick leave actually it provides for notice to the employer okay as soon as this is practically possible okay yes all right so now um when a woman takes uh all this time to be away chances are that at the workplace there's interruption yes you know for example if somebody was a secretary for instance and now they're not there i need someone at the front office and maybe now they are away for five months so there's a chance that at the end of the five months something has changed as opposed to when a man has been away for two weeks and then they're just able to literally just walk in and pick up where they left off yes so what does it look provide regarding to the changes that could have taken place while this lady was away helping the world to not go into extinction so um thank you uh what the law provides is that once you resume work okay after you've taken that extended leave you're entitled to go back to the same position that you had and if that position is not available for the results that you've described then you're entitled to get an equally favorable position with terms and conditions not less than the one that the ones that you were enjoying before oh great yes so it's either the same position or a similar position with similar benefits similar terms all right yes okay so that brings us to towards the end of our broadcast i know i know guys are about to go to fatality leave but really i advocate for the money anyway thank you carol for joining us if you have any questions regarding the topics that we've dealt with today you can write to carol how can people reach you um i can be reached on email at carol mussimilo.com and alternatively at litigation at museumilor.com all right is that carol to the k or with the c o l at musemilla.com all right and if you have any questions for us any queries any topics that you want us to deal with in this series please write to us at info cyberglobal.com that's info at sarahglobal.com or you can also use our gmail address that is cyrilloglobal gmail.com i would like to thank chigitnjiti advocates for facilitating the shooting of this series we'd also like to thank our videography team that's mushy reframes their gmail their email address will be displayed on this broadcast thank you for staying tuned take care of yourself goodbye