Maternity Leave advice please

[Bellenden Belle]

I'm hoping people/ HR specialists might be able to shed some light on a maternity leave/ cover question for me.

I work for a very small organisation and already there is low level panic about recruiting for my maternity cover. My question is - do I have to say a date when I want to return at present? I suspect I will want to take 12 months but would like the option to return at nine.My understanding is that I am not legally obliged to give a return date until much later.

But how does one advertise for cover in such circumstances? As a charity, my company can't afford even a couple of months of extra pay if there happens to be an overlap. Is it quite common to state Maternity Cover - minimum 9 months with a view to extension? I am worried I am gioing to be pressurised into deciding to take a year before I'm even four months pregnant.

[2Loulou]

I think they have to assume a year off but you give them a certain date 6 weeks prior to returning, at this stage you just have to give them an idea of how long you intend to stay off work so they get organise replacement, most contractors can be given 1 to 4 weeks to stop, so that should not be a problem for them I imagine

I am not HR specialist though this is just what I have seen in my company

[Lochie]

Hi I work in HR (I am at work today!) - here are the details from our company handbook, they should be a good guide for you and your situation:

RETURNING TO WORK FOLLOWING MATERNITY LEAVE

NOTIFICATION REQUIREMENTS

If you return to work at the end of your maternity leave period you do not need to notify X in advance of the date of your return however, it would be helpful if you could give X as much notice as you can.

If you wish to return to work before the end of your maternity leave period you must give Human Resources at least eight-weeks advance notice of the date on which you wish to return. If you do not give the required notice, X may postpone your return to allow for the full eight-weeks notice. X may only postpone the return date to the end of the maternity leave period.

If you decide not to return to work following your maternity leave, please notify Human Resources of your resignation in writing immediately, providing your contractual notice.

Remember there are also keep in touch days you can use so you could take a year off but still 'return to work' a little earlier...

KEEPING IN TOUCH DAYS

Mutually agreed ?keeping in touch? days enable you to work for up to ten days whilst on maternity leave without losing SMP or triggering the end of your maternity leave. Any work carried out on a day shall constitute a day?s work for these purposes.

[Monkey]

They can't pressurise you to take a year off.

I work as part of a small team where we try to manage our costs so what I did is that I worked out how long I wanted to take off from the start and stuck to it. It helped that I could not afford to take more than four months off in any event!:))

[Yak]

The directgov website has a pretty decent summary of what happens at the end of ML here.

__________________________________________________________

Giving notice of your return to work

Your employer will assume that you will take all 52 weeks of your Statutory Maternity Leave. If you take the full 52 weeks, you don?t need to give notice that you are coming back. However, it can be a good idea to do so.

If you wish to return earlier, for example, when your Statutory Maternity Pay ends, you must give at least eight weeks? notice. If you don't, your employer can insist that you don?t return until the eight weeks have passed. You must tell your employer that you:

are returning to work early

want to change the date of your return

If you decide not to return to work at all, you must give your employer notice in the normal way.

___________________________________________________________

You don't have to give notice of when you would like to start your ML til much closer to your due date - 15 weeks before your baby is due. The employer will probably want confirmation of your pregnancy anyway via your MATB1 form, which you should be given by your midwife at around 22 weeks.

I also worked in a small team where no one had ever gone on ML before and I remember feeling quite pressured into having to commit to things at a very early stage in the pregancy. While I would suggest being empathetic to your employer's situation, at the end of the day it's their responsibility to find cover for you and to ensure that the contractual arrangements they put in place with your cover minimises their liabilities to pay "double".

[Joella]

Hi, there have been lots of past threads on this exact question, so worth doing a search for other advice as there are lots of HR managers out there. As an HR manager myself, a useful thing to note is that an employer can reclaim most of the SMP (statutory maternity pay) from the government, so whilst there is some administration, unless you have enhanced maternity pay policy, which I suspect not if it's a charity, they won't be paying 2 full time salaries whilst you're off.

I would be very honest with them and say it's hard to know how you're going to feel, right now you think you may wish to return at 9 months and probably the best solution is to keep up regular contact and pencil in a meeting now at your 6 month mark so you can keep them informed of your intentions. As mentioned above, you have to give 8 weeks notice should you wish to return before the 52 weeks. Many maternity vacancies indicate a range in the length of cover and in my experience, providing its for at least 6 months, then that appeals to those willing to do maternity cover posts.

www.businesslink.gov.uk is also a useful website to understand it from the employer's point of view.

[Bellenden Belle]

Thank you for all your replies. I think the key is definitely in the maternity contract they draw up for my cover - and Yak as you put it - it is up to them to put contractual agreements in place to ensure they don't pay double.

Just have to stick to my guns!

[amyw]

i have seen contracts where the person who is the maternity cover has it written into their contract that it can be cut short if the person comes back early.

sorry I'm not writing this very well.

but basically if you have to give them 8 weeks notice of returning then the maternity cover gets 8 weeks notice of the contract ending early.

[reren]

I'm just sorting this out for one of my team - basically you give someone a 6 month contract with option to extend and then give them 8 weeks notice of when it will end...i would say being as open and helpful as possible is best - managers appreciate it if you keep in touch - and having just returned to work after maternity leave i can say i found it really helped me in going back to work that i had kept up a bit of contact while off.