What are keeping in touch days?
Keeping in touch (KIT) days are available to employees taking paid and unpaid parental leave. They are designed to help employees stay connected with their workplace and ease their transition back to work after taking their parental leave.
KIT days are not considered a return to work, and they do not affect your employees’ parental leave entitlements. Employees are entitled to up to 10 KIT days for every 12 months of unpaid parental leave.
Keeping in touch days and parental leave
Australia has a government-funded Paid Parental Leave scheme. Employees are also entitled to up to 24 months of unpaid parental leave. As an employer, it’s important to be aware of your role in relation to the scheme, as well as the interaction between keeping in touch days and parental leave. Here is a look at what you need to know.
Background: Australia’s parental leave scheme
Under the Paid Parental Leave Act, Australian employees can access up to 20 weeks, or 100 payable days, of paid parental leave (PPL) through the Australian government’s Paid Parental Leave scheme. This is set to increase to 26 weeks by 2026. For more information, you can visit the Services Australia website.
Parental Leave Pay is taxable and paid at the National Minimum Wage rate. Services Australia provides employers with Parental Leave Pay funds, and employers then pay these out to employees.
Your employee must lodge a claim for Parental Leave Pay with Services Australia, which will assess their eligibility. You are required to provide Parental Leave Pay to eligible employees. Full-time, part-time, casual, seasonal and contract employees may be eligible.
As a company perk, you can choose to offer additional parental leave pay on top of the government benefit. Receiving employer-funded paid parental leave does not affect your employees’ parental leave payments from the government. The amount that you offer ultimately depends on your company’s budget, but it demonstrates that you value working parents and can be a great way to attract and retain talent.
How do keeping in touch days affect parental leave?
If an employee returns to work during their parental leave, their Parental Leave Pay usually stops. Keeping in touch days provide an exception. They allow employees to perform limited work-related activities while on parental leave without losing any of their paid or unpaid parental leave entitlements.
Employees can access 10 KIT days for every 12 months of unpaid parental leave. Under the Fair Work Act, employees can take 12 months of unpaid parental leave, and you can agree to extend their leave to a maximum of 24 months. If you were to give your employee an additional 12 months of unpaid parental leave, they would receive an additional 10 KIT days. For more information, visit the Fair Work Ombudsman’s website.
Accessing these days does not break up or extend your employees’ unpaid parental leave period. They do not receive an additional 10 days of parental leave if they work 10 KIT days. However, your employees cannot receive both paid leave and payment for work performed on KIT days at the same time. If they work a KIT day while on paid leave, you may choose to either:
- extend their paid leave period or
- credit back the paid leave.
How do keeping in touch days work?
Let’s dive into the detail about how keeping in touch days work. Both you and your employee must mutually agree to KIT days. These days can be worked in a 10-day block, one day at a time, or a few days at a time. It’s up to you and your employee to decide.
Your employee cannot work a KIT day within the first 2 weeks after the date of birth or date of placement of an adopted child. As the employer, you can only suggest a KIT day after 42 days since their child’s date of birth or date of placement. Your employees can choose whether they want to use their KIT days.
A KIT day doesn’t necessarily have to be a full day. If your employee only performs one hour of paid work activity, this counts as one KIT day and should be deducted from the 10-day limit. You are required to pay your employees their regular wages for the hours worked on KIT days and their usual entitlements, such as annual leave, also accrue on these days.
It’s important to ensure that your employees do not work more than 10 KIT days in 12 months. If they do, this would be considered a return to work and they would lose their parental leave entitlements.
Permitted keeping in touch activities
Only certain work activities qualify for keeping in touch days. These may include:
- taking part in a planning or strategy day which is relevant to their role
- learning or practising new or updated processes
- updating skills, for example, by participating in training sessions or conferences
- taking part in activities that will aid the transition back to work.
The main purpose of KIT days is to facilitate a smoother transition back to work. If your employee does work that has a different purpose, Services Australia may determine that they have returned to work and could stop their parental leave payments. Your employee will also be considered to have returned to work if they:
- perform their regular work activities, other than KIT days
- fill in for an absent coworker
- work more than 10 KIT days before the end of their unpaid parental leave period
- access a KIT day within the first 2 weeks of the birth or adoption of their child.
However, there is nothing stopping your employee from keeping in touch with their work team informally. Workplace activities that employees aren’t entitled to receive any payment or benefit for are generally not considered a keeping in touch day or a return to work. These activities could include:
- visiting colleagues
- attending social events
- performing other unpaid activities during social visits to the workplace, such as checking emails.
Record keeping requirements
There is no requirement to notify Services Australia or keep any formal records of KIT activities. But it’s still a good practice to keep records of the agreed arrangements between you and your employee regarding keeping in touch activities. You may refer to these if, for example, there are disputes about the number of KIT days worked.
How else can I support working parents?
Beyond offering the opportunity to access keeping in touch days, there are many ways that you can help working parents to thrive in your workplace. Here are 3 ideas for you to consider.
- Create a gender-neutral parental leave policy: This gives more options to families in which the father wants to take on more childcare duties and the mother wants to return to the workforce sooner. Normalising gender-neutral parental leave can help to close the gender pay gap and help women to return to the workforce.
- Offer flexible working arrangements: Giving your employees more freedom to choose when and where they work can help working parents to juggle work and parenting responsibilities, which often do not follow a set schedule.
- Assist with childcare: Difficulty finding suitable childcare is a considerable impediment for parents, particularly mothers, wishing to return to work. While offering an on-site daycare service may not be realistic for all companies, there are other measures you could take to relieve the burden on working parents. For example, you could offer a childcare bonus to help with childcare costs.
Key takeaways
- Keeping in touch days allow employees on parental leave to stay connected with their workplace. They help to ease the transition back to work after taking time off to care for children.
- Upon mutual agreement, employees can undertake a limited range of work-related activities designed to facilitate their return to work. These generally include activities such as training, planning days and attending conferences.
- Eligible employees can access up to 10 keeping in touch days for each 12 months of unpaid parental leave.
- These days are paid at the employee’s regular wage.
- Keeping in touch days do not affect the length of an employee’s unpaid parental leave period.
