If you and your employer agree, you can access up to 10 keeping in touch days. This is from when you become your child’s primary carer until you return to work. These 10 days don’t count as you having returned to work and won’t affect your payment.
A day of work is a keeping in touch day if the paid work you do is either:
- to stay connected with your workplace
- to help you transition back into work.
A keeping in touch day could include any of the following:
- taking part in a planning meeting
- doing on the job training
- doing work to become familiar with the workplace or your role before returning to work.
For the purpose of keeping in touch, one hour or more of paid work activity counts as one day. This counts towards the 10 day limit.
You can’t access a keeping in touch day within the first 2 weeks after the birth of your child. After this time, you can ask your employer for a keeping in touch day. You and your employer both must agree before you can participate. Your employer can’t request a keeping in touch day within the first 6 weeks after the birth or adoption.
You don’t need to tell us if you access a keeping in touch day. However, we recommend if you and your employer agree to a keeping in touch day, you get this in writing. If your employer has a human resources area, or payroll area, provide the agreement to them. This is so they don’t notify us that you’ve returned to work. We don’t need a copy of this agreement.
Keeping in touch days won’t extend your Paid Parental Leave period.
Work done on a keeping in touch day will count as service. Your employer must pay you for the time you work. A keeping in touch day may affect your workplace entitlements, such as leave accrual.
Once you have returned to work you can’t access a keeping in touch day. This is even if you didn’t use all 10 days.
We’ll consider you have returned to work if you do any of the following:
- resume regular work activities, other than keeping in touch days
- access more than 10 keeping in touch days before the end of your Paid Parental Leave period
- access a keeping in touch day within the first 2 weeks after the birth of your child.
You have an obligation to tell us if you’ve returned to work during your Paid Parental Leave period. You must also tell us if you worked on a day that you accessed Flexible Paid Parental Leave. Your employer also has an obligation to tell us if you’ve returned to work.
Accessing a keeping in touch day doesn’t affect your entitlement to 12 months unpaid parental leave. The National Employment Standards outlines this. Read more about keeping in touch days on the Fair Work Ombudsman website.