AIBU to try to renegotiate KIT days

[MamaSleep]

Hello. I’m after some advice on KIT days.

I am currently on MAT leave and have a series of 8 2-3 hour meetings I want to attend before my return.

My Line Manager agreed I could let these meetings add up to 2 KIT days, however I have just read the following on Maternity Action’s Website:

You can use a KIT/SPLIT day to keep up to date with what has been happening in your workplace while you have been on leave; to attend a training course or staff meeting; to complete a project or to help you settle back into work gradually at the end of your maternity, adoption or shared parental leave.
Even if you only work for part of a day or a couple of hours it will still use up one of your KIT/SPLIT days.

Am I being unreasonable if I go back to my Line Manager and ask if I can use the meetings as individual KIT days rather than adding them together?

I know I should have researched first but… FTM and was slightly overwhelmed in earlier months.

Appreciate any thoughts/advice/experience.

AIBU - you have agreed, leave it.
YANBU - worth asking the question

Your employer is actually helping you out, they aren't under obligation to pay you for the full day and you are only allowed 10 kit days. You can split so your best option financially is to try to get 8 half days leaving you the chance to get 6 full days pay

Sorry can you explain your first paragraph? I’m trying to get my head around all this info. It’s more complex than I thought. Sorry. And thank you - I really appreciate the help.

Were you expecting to be paid for time you weren't working?

If you do 8 kit days and are paid for 2 hours per day for the meeting.

Then surely it is the same if you do two days at 8 hours financially?

Although would be full eight hour days

My friend works for the NHS and she went in for a meeting and was paid for the day. I was trying to work out if this was the norm for KiT days and struggled find any clarity.

How does that help?
OP would need childcare when attending these meetings even if virtual.

My very large company pay you a full day pay for each kit instance ie 1 meeting in 1 day = 1 days pay, 4 meetings in 1 day = 1 days pay.

If I attend a 90 minute meeting it's time I've had to plan for, arrange my day to accommodate. I'm getting paid for the day. Might be because I'm senior and they are keeping me happy but this is my lived experience. I'm on mat leave now and when I get to the statutory portion I'll attend some budget meetings to top up my pay. I did this in 2023 with my eldest and will do it with this baby

Look at what @Revelatio posted from maternity action:

Working for part of a day or even a couple of hours will use up one of your 10 KIT days or 20 SPLIT days. You will usually only be paid for the hours worked and you need to agree what you will be paid with your employer in advance. A day's work will be the normal hours or shift patterns at your workplace.

Basically, while on maternity leave you can take up to 10 KIT days without being considered “back to work”. And a KIT day is defined as “any day that you do some work”, it doesn’t matter if you work for 15 mins or 8 hours it’s one of your KIT days gone. So by working 2-3 hours over 8 days, you have used 8 days of your KIT day allowance and only have 2 days left when you can do any work. If your partner’s taking SPL then you have 20 days split between you, but I assume that’s not relevant for you.

This is very helpful - it sounds like it’s all down to individual places how they do it.

I don’t think it’s my line manager’s fault. My company is a small start up and I’m only the second person to go on Mat Leave. Obviously from my PoV I would like to do the 8 meetings and be paid for the day like you! Seems like some companies do it (and from my friend said, this includes the NHS).

Gosh. I didn’t think it was this strict. I am so naive!

I would suggest that the PP and her employer were incorrect to do this and that her maternity leave actually ended once she'd done 10 different incidents of KIT

The rules are very clear

Thank you - I meant another poster was able to just work part of the day and get paid a full day - I was responding to this bit:
‘Surely if you want to get a whole days pay you need to do a whole days work? I think logging in for 2-3 hours and being paid all day would be unusual.’

I understand the 10 days a lot better now - that seems really clear cut.

Gosh I have never heard of anyone being paid for a full day, when not worked a full day. Across lots of companies.

You should assume that you will only be paid for hours worked, and then work out which approach is easiest for you.

No they can't add them up, but it's possible your manager was trying to do you a favour because you get paid the same (as if they were only paying for a few hours), and then you have more KIT days available until the end of your mat leave if you want to use them.

Whether they pay for the entire day or not really depends on your manager, my previous boss was happy to pay me a whole day to join a few online meetings, my new manager got me to come into the office for full days on all my KIT days which was a real pain (so I didn't do that many).
Personally in your situation I would give half a day for each meeting, or a full day if you agree to add a couple of hours of handover/1-1 meetings.

Yes I think this is best!

sorry it’s taken me so long to get my head around it all

Gosh I bet you were frustrated with your new manager.

Unless you have a usual hourly rate be careful how they calculate your daily rate ☺️ I’m a teacher and they initially wanted to pay 1/365th of my annual pay, I managed to renegotiate it to 1/195th of my annual pay as we are only contracted to be in the building for that many days. Quite a big difference between the 2 rates!

It’s an absolute minefield and even within a school with lots of people using the odd day for KIT I still had a game working out what we could/couldnt do ☺️ worked out well though and I managed to maximise my KIT days on all of my maternity leaves

Oh that’s a scary prospect. How did you find out how they calculated it? How did you maximise your KIT Days??

It’s generally down to your company’s policy tbh. When I used KIT days I was only paid for the hours worked.

Whether they will pay you for the full day for a meeting that is a few hours is down to your company. If they have a good culture or want to keep staff (which is why your friend in the NHS probably found she was able to) they will probably offer it but they don’t need to.

I knew my work wouldn’t have paid me for a full day based on a few hours of meetings, so I did a full day. It’s not quite like a normal full day though, there will be a lot of time catching up with colleagues (which is part of a KiT day) and less sat at your desk actually typing. If you can get the childcare for it, it might work out better to do the full day and get paid. I quite liked doing my KiT days, I had a nice catch up with colleagues, caught up on the office gossip, cleared out some emails and did about half a day of real work (catching up my manager/cover/team about work related things). The rest of the day was going to the toilet in peace, enjoying my lunch break completely alone and getting to show baby pictures to those that were interested.

I got paid full days but wasnt in as long as usual.

Eg went in for team building event- was something like 10-3, and included a lovely lunch, and was paid a full day. I offered to go in 9-5 but my lovely boss rolled her eyes and said don't bother.

I did 3 days where i did 1 day each week before i went back properly, used the time to get my laptop updated, catch up with lots of people etc, my boss told me to jusr do 9 30 - 4 or so but i was paid full days.

They treated male colleague who did spl the same.

For anyone working KIT days while still getting statutory pay, remember that your employer has the right to offset your pay against the stat pay - they may not do so, but they can choose to. AND stat pay is calculated weekly not daily so your KIT pay would be offset against a whole week stat pay which for someone low paid or only doing a few hours, might end up working for no pay.
So always always get in writing what your company will pay for KIT days, especially if their policy is unclear. Speaking from bitter experience.
Doesn’t apply to OP but it’s something lots of people aren’t aware of.

You do realise you are only paid for the hours you work but that amount of hours whether it’s 1 or 8 equates to one KIT day. One kit day doesn’t mean you are paid for a full day. It just reduces the amount you can work during Mat leave if you only do 2 hours during each KIT day. And wait till your mat pay is finished/on minimal amount or you end up working for nothing and they withhold mat pay.

Do it. You don’t have to work a full day to be paid for a full KIT day. Or at least I didn’t need to. I only had to work half a day (3-4 hours) and it could be put down as a KIT day and I’d get a full day’s pay. Check your companies policy, and if that’s the case for you send it to your manager and say something like “I’ve just re-read the policy and it says I only have to work X hours to qualify for a full KIT day. That means each of these meetings can class as 1 KIT day, and that’s what I’d like to do.” If you and your manager previously agreed it the other way, you are allowed to change your mind, especially since you weren’t aware you could be eligible for a full days pay for each.

It should be in your family leave policy how kit days are treated - it might be your LM is unclear so I’d confirm with HR what the payment will be and how they need you to confirm that you’ve done it

No one here knows your company’s policy so they shouldn’t assume you will or won’t get paid for the full day.

At my company you get paid for the full day even if you do just 1 hour of work. So clearly it does happen in some places. You’ll just need to ask what your company’s policy is.

Policy is my company is you get a full days pay for any hours worked on a KIT day, so not unusual in my experience.