Here, at Morgan Sindall Construction we want you to have a happy and healthy home and work life.
We don’t want to try and predict or assume that everyone’s needs are the same - every family and everyone is different. It’s important that our policies reflect this, so we can take a more inclusive approach to support all our colleagues, enabling you to make real choices based on your family needs, whilst still feeling valued and equal.
We know that becoming a parent is a pivotal time in your life and that you’ll want to spend time away from work to focus on your family. If you’re welcoming a new child into your life whether this is through birth, adoption, or surrogacy our parent leave policy explains how we’ll support you. It covers maternity, adoption, and paternity (partner) leave.
We want you to feel supported during life’s important moments and not to feel like you have to make a choice between your family and your career, so we provide significantly more enhanced benefits than the minimum legal entitlements under this policy.
Parent leave policy
Shared parental leave (SPL) enables eligible parents to choose how to share the care of their child during the first year of birth or adoption. Its purpose is to give parents more flexibility in considering how to best care for their child allowing both parents to take leave at the same time or to alternate between who is caring and who is working.
Shared parental leave can only be created when the mother or primary adopter curtails, or cuts short their maternity or adoption leave allowing any unused statutory entitlement to be shared. The scheme itself can be complex as each parent claims SPL from their own employer but if you decide to take shared parental leave, we’ll support you along the way.
Shared parental leave policy >
Ordinary parental leave enables you to spend more time with your child/ren and to strike a better balance between work and family commitments. This leave is unpaid, but if you're eligible you can take up to 18 weeks per child up until their 18th birthday (although you can only take a maximum of four weeks per year).
We believe that if you need time away to spend with your child/ren you shouldn’t have to wait to become eligible so our policy will apply regardless of your length of service, and we’ll make sure that if you’re a foster carer or kinship carer you can also take leave under our policy.
Ordinary parental leave policy
We understand that if someone depends on you, you might need to take ‘last minute’ time off at some point to deal with an emergency which can be stressful.
Emergency dependants leave allows you to take reasonable unpaid time off work to deal with an emergency affecting your dependant(s). It’s important to understand that this leave is for unexpected emergencies and so it doesn’t apply to things like your dependant’s planned medical appointments, covering school holidays or for long term arrangements.
Emergency dependants leave policy
If you’re juggling work as well as caring for a dependant this can be a lot to handle and it can have an impact on many aspects of someone’s life, including work, relationships and health and wellbeing.
We don’t want colleagues to have to choose between work and their caring commitments, so, no matter what you’re experiencing we’ll be as flexible as we can, and we’ll do what we can to support you. This includes providing up to 5 days paid leave in any 12-month rolling period to help you fulfil some of your caring responsibilities without the need to take holiday or unpaid leave.
Carers leave policy
We know that coming to terms with the loss of a loved one can be a difficult and emotional time in your life and that grief impacts everyone in different ways. We also recognise that there are other situations that need a compassionate approach for example coping with a loved one who is receiving end of life care or dealing with a significant personal issue. Generally, we’ll give up to:
Two weeks paid leave for a bereavement
One week paid leave to be with a loved one who is seriously ill or receiving end of life care
Three days paid leave for a personal crisis.
Whilst in general, time off for immediate family members (spouse or partner, parent, child, or sibling) is covered, we also appreciate that family dynamics can be unique to every family, and you may need time off for a different relationship. So, we’ll look at what’s fair and reasonable under the circumstances.
Compassionate leave policy
Wanting a family is a fundamental need for many of us and it can be a long and uncertain road for those who are experiencing difficulties conceiving, trying to have or grow a family. Juggling workplace commitments alongside the strains of undergoing fertility treatment can cause additional distress during what is already an incredibly difficult time.
As a guide we will generally give paid leave for up to 5 appointments per cycle, for up to three cycles of fertility treatment. This includes partners and not just the person who is receiving the treatment.
Fertility at work support guide
A loss during pregnancy, during birth or after birth can be an incredibly painful time that has a lasting physical and emotional impact on those experiencing it.
We have developed our guidance to make sure that anyone affected by this does not feel alone and gets the support they need. Our pregnancy and baby loss support guide links to our compassionate leave policy which provides paid time off for those who need it, including partners, if they suffer pregnancy or baby loss.
Pregnancy and baby loss support guide
"The way we work moving forward will involve us combining our traditional ways of working with our learnings from the pandemic about the benefits of greater flexibility.
It is important to me that this is something available to everyone– whether working on site or in one of our offices – and whilst we have had a flexible working policy in place for some time, I want to ensure that we are exploring more informal opportunities for colleagues to be more agile and flexible in the way they work."
Pat Boyle, Managing Director
Flexible and agile working is available to everyone, and arrangements can take two forms:
This would require formal agreement by your line manager, as they will require a change to the employment contract. Examples of flexible working are:
Part-time working
Job sharing
Informal arrangements (agile working) offer colleagues the opportunity to be more agile in the way they work, by agreement with their line manager, and having assessed the overall opportunity and impact on the wider team. Examples of agile working are:
Staggered hours
Working from home
Flexible site working patterns
