To ask you to help me be smart about this mat leave issue?

[ConkerGame]

Struggling with this mat leave issue and hoping the viper hivemind can help me work out how to deal with it! Apologies for the length but didn't want to leave out any relevant factors!

I started a new job 18 months ago. I took it in a bit of a hurry as I wasn't planning to leave my old job, which I loved, but found I was completely side-lined (to the point of not being given any work) after returning from my first mat leave, despite things going really well before I took the leave. I had to get out relatively quickly as I knew I wanted a second DC and would need to be in any new job for a year before qualifying for enhanced mat leave.

I told the recruiter from the very start (and kept repeating) that I needed to see the mat leave policy ASAP as I'm the main breadwinner but he kept fobbing me off and in the end I didn't get to see it until after they had offered me the role (after a gruelling 4 round process, which included me staying up until 1am the night before having all of our family round for DC1's first birthday, preparing a presentation), so obviously I was already quite invested by that point.

The policy is terrible. I was really upset with the recruiter and made it clear to him I would never have even interviewed for the role if I'd seen the policy first, as we need the money, but by this point I was very invested and felt rushed as I had interviewed for a couple of other roles which didn't feel right at all. Despite the policy, I really got on with my now boss, the work was a step up and there was a small pay increase. I even raised my concern with my new boss before accepting the role and he told me that the company realised the policy was terrible and were in the process of updating it, so it should be fine by the time I would need to qualify for it.

Fast forward 18 months, the job has been good but I'm now pregnant and of course the policy has not been updated, leaving DH and I in a very stressful situation. It was true that HR were updating it and I was following its progress as part of the Women's Network, so I was as sure as possible it would be updated this summer, but the Board just hasn't approved the new version and it won't be done in time for me, if at all in the near future. We are talking about a big, successful FTSE 100 company here, not some small, struggling start-up or similar, so there is no excuse for it, it's just not a priority so not being done. I know I took a risk when taking on the role but am honestly just so, so disappointed that nothing has improved in 18 months. I also couldn't time my pregnancy perfectly - if it had taken us 6 months or longer to conceive then we would have been ok financially as they have a 2 year enhanced policy which, while not great, is acceptable. However we were lucky to fall pregnant first time, which of course you can't count on so need to leave a bit of wiggle room and age is not on my side.

My heart says to just completely check out of the company now - they've really screwed us over as a family so why should I care about them? Just work to rule until I go on leave, then go part time and work to rule when I return until I feel ready to apply to move somewhere new. My head says: the job is otherwise good, working to rule would mainly punish my boss and my team, who are in no way to blame for this, I should play the long game as this will be my last mat leave so I won't be affected by the policy after this. Yet another part of me thinks I should fight for an improvement for the next couple of months - speak to anyone I can on the Board and make it clear I'm unhappy, in the hope this will spur them to approve the new policy in time for it to benefit me? But I'm not very senior in the corporate hierarchy (have only spoken to one person on the Board previously) and worried that this could go wrong for me and I'll be frozen out before I'm ready to leave, which would create a bad atmosphere and cause stress around my mat leave, which would be horrible.

Don't really know where to go from here :-( Please nobody respond telling me I'm lucky to get mat leave at all, lucky to have a job at all, etc. that's all the bare minimum we should be expecting - I'm a highly skilled professional and know my worth to the company (as does my boss and his boss). Just looking for a fair package for women in 2024 from a large, successful company, but apparently that's still too much to ask for...

@MissScarletInTheBallroom yes and yes. Unfortunately he is also not senior enough to really influence a change. I think he will be just as disappointed as I am that there hasn't been any progress. We work really well together and that's one of the reasons I don't want to take my disappointment at the Board out on him/our team. His boss is senior enough to have influence, however, so I might try seeing if my boss will speak to his boss and we can get things moving that way. (Though feel bad at having to bring this up yet again and making it his issue, though I guess that's part of the role of manager!)

Confused by your "the company screwed us over". You knew about the policy and decided to go for the role anyway due to sank cost fallacy. That's on you. And maybe it will make you feel less angry to accept your responsibility in this.
Whether you check out or fight, it's a matter of personal values. I wouldn't be comfortable not giving my 100% (but no more) to the job. I would enquire who is the working group overseeing the policy and then contact them to enquire what is the holdup.

The fact that they employed you knowing you had every intention of taking mat leave indicates to be that they DO value female employees, otherwise you wouldn’t have got the job.
You sound like an intelligent woman, so why did you not wait until you had sight of the mat policy before accepting the job? Then once you realised it wasn’t great, why didn’t you push for it to be improved? Then why, knowing it hadn’t been improved, did you choose to get pregnant knowing you’d struggle financially?
This is all on you I’m afraid,

I do just want to add the following: Women's Networks efforts go about this incorrectly (in my very humble opinion). Not all women in the workplace want or can have any, or any more children; and women in the workplace encounter many issues that men don't beyond maternity leave (wait till you hit the menopause).

I really think these efforts should be reclaimed as Family Network efforts. It's really about tiny babies being put into daycare (beyond a certain point where the mother is physically healed from pregnancy and childbirth), and toddlers and small children being continuously sick in the early years, and holiday childcare not being routinely available and so on and so forth for a child's childhood. Shared parental leave should be brought under this umbrella. It's also about disabled dependents and care for ageing dependents. The burden should be borne by mother and father, for the benefit of the family as a whole. The days of 5 weeks of annual leave just isn't applicable in a society where the majority of families are now two-working parents, where people live longer, where national healthcare offers less and less care, where public resources simply don't stretch far enough to give people the necessary (let alone any slack). The state is privatising care for dependents and the vulnerable by shrinking its offering; yet employers are demanding just as much as ever. Adults in the 30-60yo range (ime) are squeezed dry.

To reframe the conversation as "Family Networks" includes all adults, including the men who sit on all-male boards. They likely have children, they likely never took paternity leave, they likely have SAHMs raising their children. But making this a "human being with family obligation" issue, rather than a "women and women-only" issue is more realistic and more palatable, and gives employees greater freedom to manage all the calls on their resources.

I was the main earner in a professional senior position with no full pay at all - I just had to go back when children were 16 weeks - unfortunately that's just life

You took a gamble on changing jobs and lost. You could have declined and stayed in your old job and waited for another job opening but you gambled that this new employer would have a better mat leave in place by the time you needed it. They haven't. There isn't much you can do other than negotiate but it will p off anyone else in the company

The comments on here from other women and mothers are fucking depressing…

hope you get a good outcome OP…

Agree. Smacks of “I didn’t get this benefit / I wasn’t brave enough to negotiate so nobody else should either”.

Be the change OP

The time to negotiate is when you are in receipt of a job offer and have not yet accepted. Having gone through numerous interviews the company is also invested as well as the candidate.

OP is welcome to try now but as someone who is about to go on a long period of maternity leave her leverage is somewhat reduced.

She didn’t think she needed to negotiate as was told the policy was changing anyway.

I agree that it would have been better to get a written promise then of better mat pay, but that doesn’t mean she can’t try for better now. Nothing to lose by negotiating.

That's terrible and almost as low as it goes.
I would speak with your boss about what can be done with keeping in touch days. Can they agree to give you the two a month after the 8 weeks for minimal effort (eg reading industry magazines or joining online team meetings or going in for the Xmas lunch day)

Ps I only work to rule now after going back part time and literally no one has noticed or if they have no one has said anything. I wonder why I have been breaking my back at work for the last 15 years

Will working to rule impact bonus and promotions? Could cost you more jn the longer term.

I've only read your OP, not TFT so apologies if I'm repeating.

Do not make a huge fuss, go to the board, barrack or complain. Not if you want to keep your job. Sorry, but the reality is that you signed up for a job with a crap maternity policy and now you are stuck with it. They said they were going to update it but didn't and you must have realised this was a possibility.

It is shit but I can't see that you've anything to gain by being a poor performer now, except being managed out of your role or performance managed.

If you're not having more children do your job, go on leave, go back early if you need to financially. Give your input as appropriate as part of the women's committee.

If you are going to have more, go on leave, get another job with a better policy, then leave.

I agree it's shitty but it's also what you signed up for.

I would suggest that if you otherwise like the job and it will fit around family life after your leave, just work with what is offered as maternity pay. It’s a few weeks difference in pay compared to other companies but that isn’t life changing and having a job you like with colleagues you get on with is of huge long term value.

They have NOT 'screwed you over', that is totally untrue.

You accepted their terms. Then you deliberately got pregnant.

Now you're complaining the terms are not to your liking. The company has done nothing wrong.

I'd also add that I went back to work after 4 weeks as the main breadwinner. I had no choice.

I was in a senior position but the mat leave policy was rubbish - 6 weeks at 90% then stat, so bare minimum

I negotiated the 6 weeks up to 100% and that they matched any holiday included. So saved my 5.6 weeks holiday at full pay, then they gave me a further 5.6 weeks at full pay

Good luck

I used to think that, but the older I get the more I think it's "it's already shit for women in the workplace, please don't make it any harder". You can apply the same mentality to many realms (eg race, disability). And, the older I get, the more sympathetic and understanding of that mentality I am. Once upon a time I was right at the front of the march holding the biggest placard, fighting the fight at personal cost. In my lifetime I've seen wealth and power become concentrated in the hands of astonishingly few immorally rich white men. What the OP is asking for is crumbs - and if she gets them, other people are feeling there will be none left for them. People arguing over crumbs are missing the bigger picture, which is that the real prize is quietly being siphoned off way above their heads. So, I sympathize.

The argument shouldn't be between women; it should be against the all-male Board who are ensuring ever-increasing profits while making employees like the OP "negotiate" for extra time with her newborn baby. It's just miserable and depressing and immoral, and I can't really criticize anyone for their reaction to that.

But you did though. Never believe anything anyone says in the workplace until it's happened - bonuses, promotions, contract changes, ANYTHING.

@Onlyonekenobe totally agree it should be a family and carers network. Will suggest this at work and hopefully find some male colleagues who want to get involved.

That's not a negotiation, that's a threat. Depending on who the buck stops with they may take that very badly. A lot of high ups hate the thought of losing control and will just show you the door if they see it as minion attempting blackmail.

Also, it's in their interests for you to just quit as they then don't have to pay you for months to do nothing for the company and they have to find a replacement for your maternity leave anyway - finding a permanent employee is easier than a temp mat cover.

You'd be better off putting together a convincing argument to give you a few more weeks fully paid in line with industry standard. Tell them you're happy to be a guinea pig for the new policy (assuming you know what that is) as even if not formally approved they're surely nearly there.

To play devil's advocate, men aren't asking for several weeks off at full pay. It's not the company's fault someone has decided to get pregnant. I'm a woman and I'm paying someone for months out of my own pocket to do nothing that helps my business. If the government covered it that would be different. The increasing profits happen because other people are working to make that happen, not morally wanting to be working their arses off to cover the costs of you sitting at home with a baby. Companies are not your benefits system, and companies take a lot of risk. one year might be great, the next might be terrible. At the moment everything is up in the air in multiple different ways and past success is zero indicator of how things are right now (which is shit for most).

I agree with some of the others you have been a bit daft and framing it as "screwed over" by the company is unfair. You took serious decisions based on uncertain information.

But..... @onlyonekenobe is correct, you need to both broaden and narrow the arguments to lobby for a change. I've jotted down some thoughts from my own experiences....

1. Join the Women's Network. Have they a rep for maternity issues? If not, get yourself that title but fight the case under their banner. It both shelters you individually when challenging upwards, but also gives you more credibility than arguing as a single individual.

1. Has Women's Network got a Board Level Champion? If not find someone sympathetic and get their advice on how to lobby your board effectively. Do your homework on them. Who has kids? Who is influential at just below board level that can whisper in their ears? Who voted against the policy change and why? When is the next time a board can consider an amended version?

1. Narrow the scope. Find other pregnant women who are impacted. Are they willing to go as a group to some seniors? Get their actual stories, what does the reduced pay mean to them at a practical level? Make the consequences of the current policy real to the Board.

1. Broaden the scope. Have you an intranet? Under the banner of the Women's Network can you run a survey on it? Target both men and women and ask what about satisfaction levels with the current policy. Have they considered leaving the organisation because of it? Do they know others who have? etc. Get the data.

1. Contextualise the data. What is the org's gender pay gap? What about senior representation of women? What is the industry norm? What is an estimated cost of changing the policy (HR might be able to help with a rough estimate of numbers of women taking mat leave each year.) Use the survey results and this to make the case.

1. Make it easy for them. If you know what the issues were with the rejected policy, write a revised version yourself. Don't get overly ambitious or greedy with it. Suggest a reasonable increase they can easily agree to. You can still push for further increases later.

1. If you are running out of time, time box the new proposed policy. For example, suggest they drop the length of time to entitlement to enhanced mat pay to 1 year in role and extend it to 20 weeks full pay (maybe throw in some return to work support). Propose this as a Pilot to last one year and staff who benefit from it are then surveyed to assess the effectiveness of retaining staff and improving morale etc. etc. Frame it as helping the business to make the best informed decision about how maternity leave should be handled in their modern diverse company in a way that both benefits the business and employee. Cost it as accurately as you can. Is there an underspend in some diversity budget you could use to cover it to make it cost neutral?

8. Work with HR, not against them. They have all the information you need to make your argument. They know the figures and they know the recruitment and retention landscape.

Great illustration of why this shouldn't be framed as a women's-only issue: women are business owners too, and maternity leave (paid and unpaid, albeit indirectly for the latter) costs money. Women business-owners tend to be at the SME level; this is where the costs of family-focused employments laws pinch the most. They can tank a small business.

But it's grist to the mill of the argument that the bigger, richer employers should be paying more towards society-friendly life. It won't tank a FTSE100 company to offer women more than 8 weeks of leave on full pay (8 weeks! How many of us were compos mentis at 8 weeks post-partum?). Not when execs are taking home hundreds of thousands a year in salaries and whatever other conditional bonuses; and dividends are - long term - manifesting an upwards trend. That upwards trend is coming at the cost of employees like OP (and other factors, of course). SMEs can be exempted from such rules (although at the possible cost of recruitment, but other financial incentives, again subsidized by a more equitable tax regime) can help with that).

The bottom line is that there is a slice of society that is getting immeasurably richer, and an even bigger slice that is experiencing the opposite (in time and money and phyiscal/mental health). Totally imbalanced.

Mortgages are in general more flexible these days than they used to be. For example, there there are offset mortgages that can work to your advantage in some circumstances, or interest only, or have a payment holiday or extend the term beyond the (used to be) standard 25 years; the upper age limits for paying off the mortgages are no longer set at 70 or 75; it might be 80 or 85 or some have no upper age limit at all. So you could extend the mortgage term in order to lower the monthly payment until you are in a position to shorten it again and go back to higher monthly payments. Check the terms of your provider's mortgages to see what options are open to you. And look at other mortgage companies as well, if you are free to move and remortgage without penalty.