Mat leave and pay

[Housereno123]

Not sure if this belongs here or legal matters. I’ve NC’d for this because previous threads are outing!

Can an employer reduce salary increase or bonus payments because of maternity leave in the previous year? DH says they can’t but I wanted to check.

Bonus payments aren’t guaranteed so yes they can decide not to buy bonus but they can’t just decrease your baseline salary.

@Fitforforty thanks for your comments. Can they reduce bonus by 50% because you’ve been on mat leave in the year in review?

Are bonus payments based on performance? If you haven't been there to 'perform' I could understand why you wouldn't qualify for 100%.

You can have a lower pay rise % and bonus if it's not for discriminatory reasons.

Lower pay rise, if you negotiate your own it's tough to prove discrimination without full disclosure of your colleagues performances vs yours and their individual pay rises. If through collective bargaining (unions) they have to award you the same as everyone else.

Bonuses, can be lower depending on criteria, especially if you reduce hours going back because you'll be awarded based on the % of a full time employee. E.g. a £1000 bonus becomes £760 roughly if you drop from 37 hours to 28 hours on your contract. Most bonus schemes are discretionary rather than contractual. As long as the company can show you haven't been treated unfavorably because of maternity leave they can pay less than you've previously had.

[quote Housereno123]@Fitforforty thanks for your comments. Can they reduce bonus by 50% because you’ve been on mat leave in the year in review?[/quote]
Cross posted with you. Depends on the reason for 50% less.

If you're on 50% less hours then yes because it's pro-rata against your contract.

If it's because you didn't work to have evidence of performance they're on tricky ground and it's worth speaking to the union because they should really be using performance output on a pro-rata basis to cover the time you've taken for maternity leave.

Does your employer have a policy on Bonus payments? Most do so I would ask to see it.

Yes bonus payments are based on performance. They have given me a bonus and halved the % because I’ve been on mat leave. DH is telling me this is discriminatory but I have no idea.
I will try to find the bonus policy. Thanks everyone.

For context, when I was on mat leave before they did say (in writing) they were halving my bonus because I couldn’t prove my performance, which I believe is illegal. I should have challenged it last time, so want to make sure they are not making a mistake again.

Hi op. My employer pays bonus pro-rated for time in the business during the performance year. So it's reduced for the length of mat leave (minus one month). It's not discriminatory as sickness absence is treated the same way. So I'd check your employers policy on that and if it's reduced for sickness absence then there's no discrimination. If it's not, you could argue that it is discriminatory.

I'm not sure about pay rises but if they are performance related then I guess they could be impacted if not in the business.