How to Request Maternity Leave

Thought of meeting your boss and requesting him for a maternity leave is a bad idea but then you don’t have to worry as help is there just follow the guidelines given below and request your boss for a maternity leave.

Get yourself organized:

You need to know about your rights regarding maternity leave before you decide to put in a word for the leave. Various websites have articles which state the laws and regulations regarding women’s rights to seek maternity leave. Some companies call this extended leave as sick leave so you need to know about the rules set in by your company.

Knowing your rights and exercising them should be your main concern as the extended leave may vary from person to person so you need to know how safe your work place or you is may be at a risk of losing your job. Maternity leave brings with it the loss of finance but then you can go through the following articles which may help you seek monetary help during pregnancy leave.

• Maternity Leave, Disability, and Unemployment
• Help for Pregnant Moms Who Can’t Work and Need Money
• Income During Maternity Leave

How and when to request leave?

Depending upon the situation you need to put in a maternity leave request as there is no fixed way or time where you can seek maternity leave. You need to tell your colleagues about your impending pregnancy.

Tips to time your leave request order:

Think about all the possibilities of getting leave before you put in your request order, giving time to the health care provider to decide if there are any pregnancy related problems which may affect your leave.

Waiting too long is also not advisable:

The minimum time limit that the federal laws permits is at least one month prior notice from the date of required leave but then you can always put in a leave request a couple of months earlier too.

Once the actual leave date has been decided all you need to do is fix an appointment with the concerned supervisor and put in your leave request, as this is a formal meeting and the meeting should not be done unannounced.

Dos and Don'ts:

You need to be in full control of yourself, when you meet up with your boss and request him for a maternity leave, you also need to have a typed letter to hand over during your meeting, also send in a copy of your leave request to the human resource department, you can have some projects that you can work out at home, thus driving in the point that you are concerned about your work enabling your boss to grant you maternity leave.

The next step that you need to follow is that if your company comes under the FMLA then your boss has to fulfill certain terms and conditions of this law and in case your boss does not sanction your leave request then you need to seek advice from the U.S Department of Labor to help you out.