The Constitutional Court’s recent ruling on parental leave has prompted an important shift in how South African employers think about people, policies, and workplace culture going forward. Giving all new parents the opportunity to share four months and 10 days of leave as they themselves see fit, regardless of their gender or how their parenthood is formed. This is a long-overdue correction to an unequal system and a meaningful step toward inclusive workplaces that support families in all their forms.
But, as with any landmark ruling, the path from the courtroom to the HR policy manual is not linear. It requires conversation and careful planning. While Parliament works over the next 36 months to align the Basic Conditions of Employment and Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) acts, interim provisions already apply, and organisations need to start adapting immediately.
Firstly, policies need to be rewritten in language that reflects families more accurately, systems must be adjusted to record shared parental leave, taking cases where the parents are with different employers into account, and all changes must be communicated. And, because UIF benefits have not yet been updated to match the ruling, HR teams and employees must navigate an interim landscape of temporary measures and additional documentation.
For HR leaders, adequate planning has become essential. The requirement for parents to provide notice at least four weeks before taking leave helps but, in reality, not every leave request is predictable – births can come earlier than expected, and adoption and surrogacy timelines can shift. The mandatory six-week medical recovery period for birth mothers adds another layer of complexity.
In this setting, temporary employment services (TES), like those provided by Quest by Adcorp, play a particularly important role. The TES model is already structured around compliance, flexibility, and operational continuity. It is designed to bridge workforce gaps caused by both planned and unplanned leave, and it functions within the same legislation that governs permanent employment. What changes now are the scale and consistency with which TES partnerships will be called upon, often at short notice, to provide businesses with access to skilled temporary talent pools, agile deployment strategies, and reliable systems that ensure continuity without compromising performance.
As TES providers, we also have a duty to support our clients in understanding and applying these shared leave provisions, and to guide our clients with clarity and consistency. This means that compliance, collaboration and shared accountability need to work hand in hand. Workforce continuity needs to be safeguarded especially in sectors such as manufacturing, logistics, healthcare and education, and SMMEs, where even short periods of absence can disrupt operations – but not at the expense of fairness.
The ruling reminds us that workplaces are living environments, they evolve with legislation, society, and the people they serve. Equity in parental leave is not just an HR reform. It is a cultural reset that provides employers with the opportunity to build more inclusive, more resilient organisations. Ultimately, the organisations that adapt successfully will be those that approach this ruling with pragmatism and vision.
By updating policies early, using gender-inclusive language, and preparing managers to handle requests sensitively and consistently, employers can create a culture that supports equality rather than merely complying with the law. And, a leave patterns and rights shift, employers will benefit from partnering with employment specialists who understand both the legal frameworks and the operational realities of temporary staffing.
