To think if my colleague does this with her child then I should be able to as well… and it is unfair unlike what HR are saying?

[Hawua]

Colleague came back from maternity last year and used holiday 2 days a week, effectively working a 3 day week. This meant she could put her ds in nursery 3 days a week, saving quite a chunk of childcare cost.

We are exactly the same level and do the same job and joined in the same year, four years ago.

I am being told on my return from mat leave that I can’t use holiday like that and must take it all in one go. This means I will have full childcare costs while my colleague had 8 months worth of 3 day week (we have a lot of holiday allowance).

HR have said that the cost for childcare evens out as I am having six weeks off in one go, so saving a bulk in childcare that way? Am I missing something? they’ve also said my colleague is a single parent and so they made an extra flexible option for her, how is this fair?!

I work in the NHS which is heavily unionised and it would make no difference to this sort of thing. Your company will say they tried this pattern for one person and it didn’t work for the business. If you put the request in formally they will have to give you the business reasons why it was declined.

I can completely see why this wouldn’t have worked as 2 days work a week would have gone undone. It’s not like you could keep the mat leave cover on for this period. I wouldn’t have agreed this but I know managers who have.

One option available to you and your partner is to both put in a request for compressed hours over 4 days. If successful this would mean only 3 days nursery needed.

Don’t all staff have to be treated fairly and equitably, key words for your hr team to consider?

In terms of pay it is the same, if you both have 20 days paid holiday then you are both being paid for those 20 days. It doesn't matter when you use them ie 2 days every week for 10 weeks or all at once. That's what HR are saying.
I think your point is that she can postpone the day she goes part time which mean that she accrues further holiday pay at full time rate whereas if you go part time after the month off you will accrue at part time rate.

Anyway Stop worrying about whether you've saved the same amount of money. That's not really the point here.

What do you want to do? You want to work part time for a period? Then ask if that can happen. If they say yes then negotiate the day that starts and use your holiday to transition to that. If you just want to transition slowly back to full time then explain that and ask them to put in writing why it is not a reasonable request

Treating two people fairly doesn't mean treating them the same.

That doesn’t mean treating them exactly the same.

And yes a business can say ‘we tried this, it didn’t work for the business so we aren’t doing it again’

This.

It’s your annual leave.. why can’t you use it as you see fit?!

But I don’t see how the financial impact is different ? It’s the same number of days off

It is normal to have to get annual leave approved.

No of course it isn't. 8 month X 2 days a week= roughly 64 days. 6 weeks is 30 days in nursery

The Company can refuse this
They only have to consider your request
The fact that they allowed someone else to do it is irrelevant

Looks to me like your colleague had extra holidays from before. 64 days allowance is a lot. I think they came to that solution to allow her to use it and to make a benefit to the company due work load other than just looking into holidays allowance and they save the money hiring someone else.

I think there is more on this that just A has it and you no.

Financially it’s not the same as you will usually still have to pay for the set nursery days even if you take the child out during the holidays.

Check and show them the terms and conditions of the nursery you are planning to use.

Going against the grain here but I would agree it's cheaper to work part time using annual leave than to take 6 weeks off in a chunk, due to tax free childcare. TFC allows a maximum relief of £500/quarter which your colleague is unlikely to use working 3 days per week. Whereas if you work 5 days/week you will definitely max out this allowance. So she will be getting 20% relief and you will be getting less than 20% relief. However you can sign up for it a few months before returning to work so if you sign up as early as possible and start paying in straight away you can benefit from more tax relief than you would if you waited until your child starts nursery and you get the first invoice.

Because that's not how annual leave works. Very often leave is taken on a first come first served basis to ensure minimum staffing levels, for example. This is why people put in an "annual leave request" rather than simply telling people they're not in tomorrow.

So is your colleague ditching the 3 days a week once their child is two? Could you then change at this point??

I think it’s pretty standard that employer’s ask you to use your accrued leave at the end of maternity leave. I guess what they’re saying is that you won’t need to put your DC into childcare for an extra six weeks so you’ll save that way. But really the cost of nursery age your DV goes to nursery isn’t anything to do with them. You could always submit a flexible working request if you want to spend more time with your DC but it doesn’t sound like they’ve done anything wrong.

If anything you are financially better off as the per day cost of a full week is usually a reduction on the standard day rate. If you take all 6 weeks at the end of your maternity and start your child at the end then you will have paid less or at worst the same over the 8 month period vs 8 months of a 3 day week.

I can understand why it feels unfair, but it likely didn’t work which is why they wouldn’t alllw you to do it.

I would (very gently) advise you to try and get past the feelings of unfairness etc, or you’re going to spend a lot of energy as a working mum thinking like that because a lot of time it doesn’t feel fair and if you have to work, I found it was easier to just accept that sometimes life isn’t fair and not dwell!
It’s not a race to the bottom so I’m not trying to compete (if that’s the right word), but to offer you some perspective - I’m going back to work FT (albeit on flexible hours) when DD2 is 6 months old as something unexpected happened that meant we needed my income. I could spend the rest of my mat leave complaining that it isn’t fair and other people get much longer, or just accept that is how it is for now, focus on the positives and look to go PT as soon as feasible!

If they did allow you to do this too are you both going to be doing this over the same period of months? If so I can see why it wouldn't suit a company to have 2 staff in the same role on reduced hours at the same time. They have to allow it over maternity leave obviously but not afterwards

I can understand your frustration but the company makes a decision on what works for the company. They could accommodate her doing this but don't feel they can accommodate you in the same way. Upsetting for you but they aren't doing anything wrong (except it impacting your good will).

It’s not something anyone is automatically entitled to.

It might be it worked for her role and not yours, it might be it didn’t work for her role so they don’t want to repeat it, or they had a change of policy generally, or they always knew it wouldn’t work well but it it as a favour to a single parent at a particular moment in time.

By all means pursue it with HR, with advice from your union. It’s fair enough to ask if it worked in that case, could it work in yours.

Don’t however wang on about it not being fair - you aren’t 10, you know your workplace isn’t like your granny dolling out sweets - they are running a business.

Because your employer has to agree annual leave requests, balancing your entitlement to holiday with their business needs.

How old are you that you didn’t know this?

It Shouldn’t make a difference financially. It just eased her into work slower.
I would say it depends on what annual leave year this would fall into?

I suspect that either the three days a week isn't working so they are not happy to approve for you, or they cannot afford someone else to go to three days a week and she got there 'first' as it were.