KIT day paid hourly.

[UnlikelyFinancialGuru]

Posting here for traffic. NC for this.

My DC is five months old. I went into the office last week to meet with my boss and have a proper catch up with my team. I was in the office for around 4 hours. I spent another 3 travelling there and back.

I have emailed HR to advise them that I’d like to be paid for this and they’ve asked specifically how many hours I was in the office for. They propose to deduct a day’s SMP and give me 4 hours pay and have advised that KIT days are paid hourly.

I was told verbally by HR before I went on mat leave that any work - no matter how little - counted as a ‘full’ KIT day. The policy can also be read in this way (which legally means I’m able to benefit from it because any uncertainty can be read in the non-drafting party’s favour).

But WTF? Has anyone else been told this? It seems highly unusual. I can’t find anything concrete online about it but would rather be able to present them with a ‘here’s the rule’ email, then pick apart their policy and go nuclear.

Help appreciated!

They won't actually deduct a day's SMP they'll offset it against the KIT day payment so you'll still receive full SMP for the month.

They'll just reduce the KIT day payment so the total amount you receive for that day (pay + SMP) equals your normal pay for the hours worked. E.g. 2 hours worked = £40 and you receive £19.74 SMP per day so your KIT day payment will be £20.26.

Same thing in practice as deducting the SMP from the payment, but just wanted to clarify that it doesn't actually affect or reduce your SMP and you will still receive your full SMP for the month. It's a really common policy for KIT days but they should really have explained it to you before you agreed to go in or have it written in an actual policy somewhere.

Thank you everyone.

I think I’m not alone in finding this confusing, which helps at least! The guidance on KIT days online is pretty shoddy and the payment situation is crappy at best.

A day’s salary is equal to a week’s SMP in my case, so I was definitely expecting going in for half a day to be very much worth my while.

I don’t work for the NHS (but a very profitable company in the private sector, hence my ...).

They're normally paid hourly.
What they meant was if you go in, even for just an hour, it counts as a kit day. So if you have 10 then you only have 9 left after working 1 hour. You still only get paid for the hours you work though

This

I had all my KIT days topped up to my normal day rate

So you were expecting a full day pay for 4h in the office, correct?

Why would you expect to be paid for a full day, when you only worked half a day? Most odd.

Unless you exceed the maximum number of KIT days, your SMP should be unaffected so definitely query what they’re saying about that. KIT days are in addition to SMP, not instead of.

@MondayImInLove @mrsm43s because that' what normally hwppens. I got told by HR as long as i was doing 'something work related' i could be paid for the whole day regardless of how long i was actually there

Mine was to the nearest half day but it was a waste of time money wise as I did it when I went down to 0 pay and it was all salary sacrificed towards my pension and childcare. I’m not sure if it would have been slightly more protected if I’d still been on smp.

@MondayImInLove and @MrsM43s you are quite right. I was fully expecting to be paid for a whole day, no matter how many hours I worked, because this is precisely what I was told would happen. It is also, as @LazyPuppy and numerous other posters point out, common practice. For example, 6 of the 8 women in my NCT group have received a full day’s pay for working 1-3 hours.

Thanks

I just returned from a year Maternity Leave. I completed 8 KIT days - not one was anywhere near a full day (2-4hrs mostly) and were all counted as a full day for pay purposes. SMP payment came off it though, you couldn’t be paid twice for one day.

Also...the link posted upthread very clearly states that you SHOULD be paid for a full day no matter how many hours worked AND that your employer can offset SMP payment.

www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/statutory-payments-manual/spm200100

Kit days don't affect SMP in the fact that you won't lose your entitlement up to 10 days worked, but payment over & above SMP is up to negotiation between you & your employer, it isn't set out in law, as long as you receive a full week of SMP.

You get paid a full day for a kit day where I work, and people rarely work a full day, there's a leadership meeting out of the office once a month and for senior roles that's often a KIT day as it catches you up on staffing and policy changes that's about six hours plus travel, but the rest are usually half days at most with a full day pay.

I understand the half day/4hours thing - that's fair enough to me. I've always done full days KIT days for that reason too. However it's a bit shitty to offset it SMP to be frank. Legal but shitty.

I'm paid a full day and it doesn't affect my SMP. This was confirmed to me beforehand.