Employer Maternity Policy

[DulcetMoans]

I am finding the way in which the maternity policy is written where I work really backwards! Can anyone crack this and tell me actually how long I need to work there to qualify:

To qualify for contractual maternity pay, a woman must have been continuously employed by the employer for a minimum of 52 weeks up to and including the 15th week before the expected week of childbirth.

Does that make it about 7 months or any I reading it entirely backwards?

Yes I would read it like that. However that is contractual pay - statutory maternity pay limit is different

It is standard maternity policy language tbh - basically it means that upto and including your 25th week of pregnancy, you must have been employed by the company/organisation for a minimum of 52 weeks (i.e. 1 year).

It is calculated on a week by week basis - so don't guess.
There is great calculator on the Directgov website which you may find helpful

Thanks all. Its just such a backwards way of wording it. Why can't it just say 'you need to work here x weeks/months to qualify'? :o

Thanks for the reference to directgov, i'm exploring that now. Its another world!

There seems to be a bit of confusion here. The bit of the policy you have set out simply says that in order to qualify for maternity pay from your employer, you have to have worked for your employer for at least 52 weeks (i.e. a year) by the time you are 25 weeks pregnant. It doesn't set out what your maternity pay will be - that should be dealt with somewhere else in the policy document. HTH