Enhanced mat pay – industry standards

[feelingmywaythrough]

Hello,

I am a writer, editor and content creator for an estate agency. I am also five months pregnant and am coming up to my qualifying week.

I've been at my company for two years, which means I qualify for its enhanced maternity pay package, but I would like to negotiate the offer up.

With that in mind, I would love to learn a little more about industry standards for enhanced maternity packages across the worlds of both real estate and publishing. Do your companies offer enhanced mat pay? And, if so, what's the deal? EDIT: I realise most estate agents will work on commission, which will be reflected in their benefits. My question really pertains to those without a commission-based salary.

Thanks.

Hi, previous company offered 20 weeks, current offers 18. My sister's company offers 26 (so envious!). In both cases, I had to have been working for a certain period of time to benefit. I have never thought about negotiating so good luck! I will be interested to hear how it goes.

I just realised you wanted to hear about real estate and publishing - apologies! I worked in public sector, energy and my sister in consultancy.

I don’t work in your industry but I’m not sure how much scope you have to negotiate - isn’t the time to have done this when you were signing your contract? I can’t think why they would say yes to increasing your pay now since if they say no you are unlikely to get a different job at 5 months pregnant.

Civil Service is top up SMP to full pay for 26 weeks but you must return for at least 4 weeks or repay.

Have you had a preliminary chat about this; and are they open to negotiating? It wouldn't usually be something you'd do while pregnant - it'd usually be something you'd negotiate when agreeing to your contract. There will be legal implications with them changing the policy for you now at this stage; it would set a precedent for other employees. There's not really anything good in it for the company, unless they're concerned you won't come back, but a return bonus would be a more common way to get around that.

I don't work in either of the industries you've mentioned, but I did get into the habit of negotiating my maternity pay in my early 20s. It hasn't been useful in most jobs but my current one offered me 90% for 9 months as an upgrade to what I was on previously; so I've got good coverage now. It was a slog to get here, though, and I'm quite senior in my career.

I don't think you can negotiate increased maternity pay at this point. It would be part of your original contract and the firm's employee handbook.

I was contracting at a firm once during a period where they were changing their maternity leave policy. they were actually making it LESS good (astonishingly) and I remember part of the process was that they had to negotiate with everyone who had an existing contract. Needless to say, all the women on the old contracts stayed on those contracts and it was for new employees (and yes, unsurprisingly, that did cause some problems later I heard as a result of the new women getting less pay).

I agree with everyone else, it's too late to negotiate now.

Thanks all. The reason I thought I might be able to negotiate is because my enhanced package is discretionary and non-contractual. I wonder if that still means its non-negotiable. I can understand why it would be!