Mat Leave

[MeadowHay]

Hi, I'm pregnant with my first so mat leave and stuff is all new to me. My firm seem to want me to tell them the dates I want to go on mat leave ASAP except I'm due due til mid-June so I have no legal obligation to let them know before early March which is absolutely ages away! I have no idea when I want to start my mat leave, it's way too early right now to make a decision on that surely ? I'm only 14 weeks.

The other thing is I have HG and unfortunately I've been signed off work since week 6 and I'm only getting SSP which is peanuts, can someone explain how/whether this will affect my mat pay? I'm only entitled to SMP as it is so things will be tight.

Another question is I'm pretty sure I want to return to work part-time after mat leave if possible - I work FT 5 days a week 37.5 hours a week but I'd be looking to reduce this to 2 or 3 days a week post-mat leave if possible. How do I talk about this to my employer? Should I do it very soon, wait until I'm on mat leave, wait until near the end of mat leave...? I don't know what's for the best. Also, they could just refuse my request, right? I don't think they would as there's a lot of people who work a few days a week in my office, but still.

The final thing is there is a very small possibility we may end up relocating while I'm on mat leave...which would mean I would not be able to return to my job at all. In such a situation, am I ok not to give in my notice until near the end of my mat leave, as otherwise I would cease to receive SMP and have to faff about trying to claim MA wouldn't I? It's unlikely this will happen anyway but it's a possibility.

TIA

Oh I should mention I'm only expecting to take the 9 months off which is paid in SMP or however long that is anyway, not the additional 3 months unpaid leave as we wouldn't be able to afford that.

I'm due end of march, I told them I would work until a week before my due date, but I have been warning them since pretty much the start of December that I might not make it until then. I'm tired all the time and I ache all the time. I get to 12-1pm and I can do with a nap. A few women in my work left before their agreed date as they were struggling, they can't force you to work until the date you say.

Being off sick won't affect your maternity pay, only thing that affects it is how long you've been working there.

I've already started planting the seed that I will only be going back part time, I won't know what hours I will want to do until he's here as I'm not sure how much help I can get. They don't usually ask you until you're due to go back. All they told me is that my job is 'safe' if I come back full time, but when I spoke to my boss he said part time isn't a problem and they will work around it.
Again, a woman that used to work for us told them she wanted part time hours but they told her that there wasn't part time available in the department she was working in, so she decided not to come back. Whereas in other departments you can work whatever hours you like. A manager in my place doesn't work Mondays or Fridays and does school hours tues weds thurs which sounds perfect to me! It all depends on your role and your employer.

Hope this helps.

I have HG and am on mat leave now (37 weeks). I work in the NHS and was able to take mat leave at 29 weeks. I mean this with the greatest respect but it's completely useless asking on here whether being off sick will affect mat leave etc. The particulars of your situation will depend on many factors and will be specified in your maternity leave policy and you need to ask these questions directly to your HR department.

I don't see any disadvantage to telling them anything you fancy as the date ypu go off can be adjusted closer to the time depending on how well you and baby are.
Also an indication of how long is good but no one will hold you to it.
I've had 3 mat leaves and pulled a plan together fairly early which helped work plan cover and handover of ongoing work which they really appreciated.
Re pt working, dig out your firms flexible working policy and have a read. The process should be clearly outlined.
Smp only prob means no repayment if you sack it at the end and relocate. In that instance i would take the full year as would cover you until you're in a new position and avoid any cv gaps if the right job wasn't already yours by 9mth pp.

You can always tell work a date and then go on maternity leave earlier.

You have a right to ask for part time and they have to consider it but don’t have to offer it. I would wait until after your baby arrives to ask about part time time working as you may change your mind for any number of reasons.

If it's your first baby they'll probably be late, so I would just say you'll go off on your due date (or the Friday before). You can ask to bring it forwards (at my place you're supposed to give 28 days notice to change dates but no one does) or if you go into labour early it starts automatically.

If you are off sick after the 36th week of pregnancy with a pregnancy related condition that also starts your maternity leave automatically.

I would discuss the part tome think a month or so before you go back.

Once you qualify for SMP you have it for the 9 months no matter what. So for example, if you were on a fixed term contract that ends during your 9 months SMP they still keep paying you SMP until your 9 months finishes. You wouldn’t need to switch onto maternity allowance as it doesn’t work like that. It’s one or the other.

With SMP you get 90% of your salary for the first 6 weeks. They use your average salary over a particular 8 weeks period to calculate this (I think it's about weeks 17 to 25 or something like that). If you're on ssp then, it will be 90% of ssp rather than 90% of your salary. What you get after that 6 week period is standard for everyone and won't change.

Just to be clear being on SSP absolutely does affect your SMP entitlement. Please seek further advice from a website such as maternity action.

thingy that would indeed be the case if I got company mat pay, but I don't, only SMP (and SSP whilst I'm off), so the government set how that's calculated so it doesn't make any difference what my company's own policies are, iyswim, so I thought some people on here may be able to explain to me how it works as SMP is the same for everyone wherever they work.

Being off sick won't affect your maternity pay, only thing that affects it is how long you've been working there.
But I thought SMP for the first 6 weeks is 90% of average earnings but I don't know over what time period the average is. So clearly if I was on SSP for all that time period, I would only be entitled to 90% of SSP which is peanuts, whereas if I was assessed at my usual full pay I'd be getting 90% of my earnings which is way, way more than that as I work FT. It doesn't matter how long I've been there as I'm only entitled to SMP, not company mat pay, sorry if my OP wasn't clear.

Hels Thanks that was really helpful. I guess you're right about taking the full year in terms of no CV gap if we move. So I can tell them I want the 12 months now and then when I'm on mat leave say actually I want to come back after 9 or whatever? I just am unsure of my rights if I say I want to do x and then later change my mind .

Polka I'm not on a fixed-term contract but I meant more if I had to had in resignation whilst on mat leave, but I think what you're saying is that even if I resigned I'd still be getting SMP for the 9 months from then anyway even if in theory I handed in my resignation like 2 months in, right?

With SMP you get 90% of your salary for the first 6 weeks. They use your average salary over a particular 8 weeks period to calculate this (I think it's about weeks 17 to 25 or something like that). If you're on ssp then, it will be 90% of ssp rather than 90% of your salary.
Yeah, this is what I thought, I think some other posters have misunderstood. If it's weeks 17-25 I'm increasingly becoming screwed because I'm 14 now and waiting for GP to call me to sign me off for at least another fortnight . We are financially in a very precarious situation since I got sick with the HG urgh.

Sami Thanks, will look up Maternity Action!

you actually receive at least £113 (before tax) per week (April 2017 – April 2018) in earnings, on average in the eight weeks (if you are paid weekly) or two months (if you are paid monthly) up to the last pay day before the end of the 15th week before your baby is due.

Does this mean if I was still only getting SSP at this point, I wouldn't be entitled to SMP at all, because I wouldn't be earning enough?? ARGH this is really complicated for me as I have specific learning difficulties that affect my ability to work out dates and figures etc so it's all like going over my head. Need to get DH to sit down with me and help me work the stuff out.

Hi meadow on the Gov.UK website you can use their calculator tool to work out your entitlement to mat pay. I think it would be the case that if you were on SSP for the entire qualifying period you wouldn't earn enough to get smp but would get maternity allowance. Please don't take my word for it without checking first though! Would it be a possibility that you could go on annual leave during your qualifying weeks to bump your pay up?

Even if you only get SMP, your HR department will still be able to advise you.

In a similar situation myself, but further along, (HG never fully resolved, and other work specific issues meant i never went back, ).

So, assuming you are still off on SSP during your qualifying 2 months/ 8 weeks...Do you have any annual leave saved up, if you do take it all then to boost your income above the qualifying threshold, but make sure it does put you completely above it or you could screw yourself over and end up with less than the £140.98 per week (throughout your entire 9 months of SMP) which you are likely to be fully eligible for as maternity allowance.

If you are back in work by your qualifying period, blitz the overtime/ unsocial hours and push your income up as high as you can for that 2 months, as that is what counts for calculating the first 6 weeks of SMP.

Not sure if any of that makes sense, but look on the maternity action website, it explains it all better than I can.

thingy I don't know if I'm just being really naive but I don't see what incentive my HR department would have to help me ensure my SMP is as high as it possibly can be? I think they claim the SMP back from the government right, so it doesn't cost them, but I can't imagine them sitting down with me sometime and helping me jiggle everything about to help me get the most money possible - do they really do that? I mean I genuinely don't know, this is my first FT job and my first pregnancy so I feel so lost with it all , I really don't know how big a role HR would play in advising me for my own benefit rather than the company's?

I will have to really sit down and do a ton of calculations with DH very soon to work out what would be best for us and maybe speak to Maternity Action as well.

I do have some annual leave and I will be getting more mid-January-ish I think (it's a complicated time, there's a merger going on in my company and that's when I'll actually be working for a different company altogether but helpfully my HR contact is also moving over). I'm not sure how much I have right now and how much I'm getting as I'm unable to log in to the employee system outside of work but I'm sure I could ask HR after Xmas to let me know and yes that is something I could consider. I definitely have at least a few weeks I think.

Obviously I'm hoping I'll be back to work asap and I do seem to gradually be slightly improving over the last week or so but I just don't know .

It seems to me that actually if I'm unable to go back within the first few weeks of the qualifying period in the short-term I'd be financially better off resigning and claiming ESA for my HG until baby is born, but then there's the problem that I could get well again sometime during that period and would have to switch to UC which would be less money and soul-destroying and ridiculous being heavily pregnant . Actually I'm in a UC area anyway so I'm not even sure if you can still claim ESA here...and then claim MA later, but then obviously that would mean no job to go back to post-mat leave which is probably worse than a few months of financial pain. I'm very fortunate that I know my parents can lend us money if we really get stuck and we do have a small (although dwindling) pot of savings we are living off atm.

Overtime isn't an option in my job but yeah at least I can use my annual leave.

I never thought this would be this complicated but tbf it's only complicated because of the bloody HG .

HG messed up all the careful plans I had in my head!! But I had savings as backup, and plenty of time on the sofa with my laptop picking up pretty much everything I need for baby second hand of eBay, and now so many friends have given me stuff I am literally drowning in baby clothes!!

It has certainly been an added stress that I didn't need or expect. I made my husband check and recheck when my qualification period was and exactly how much money I need to make (using annual leave) during it to make it better that MA, I was just so worried about getting it wrong... And it is so complicated!!!

You'll get it sorted, it just seems like a huge weight went you are already exhausted with HG, but the HG won't last forever.

Like others have said, the Maternity Action website is really useful at answering all of your questions - see here: www.maternityaction.org.uk/advice-2/mums-dads-scenarios/pregnant/sickness-during-pregnancy-and-maternity-leave/

One other thing I’d point out is that you accrue annual leave and bank holidays over your maternity leave. If you come back part time, the amount of leave you accrue will be prorata from when your contract terms change to part time. So I think it’s better to wait to some extent before discussing with work about part time working in order to maximise your leave entitlement...

I'm due at the end of March and I've had my SMP payment schedule from my work.. It alternates between 560 one month and 704 another month, due to there being 4 or 5 weeks in the month, sounds daft but it's something id never even thought of.

SPP won't affect your SMP.

@Hollyxxxx SSP will affect SMP if you're on SSP during your 8 qualifying weeks.

I think that if you are on ssp during your pregnancy then after week 29 your employers can trigger you to be moved over to being on maternity leave from that point regardless of when you planned it would start had you been well.

Argh, loads of people keep saying SSP doesn't affect your entitlement to SMP, it does if you're on it during the qualifying period. Please can people try not to make definitive statements like that if they're not sure because it could have a big impact on people if they take it as given when it's not true.

Thanks for all your help ladies, need to sit down with DH this weekend and work out all the figures eek. I really thought I wouldn't have to think about this at all until nearer the time and HR haven't once mentioned to me on the phone or in our frequent e-mail correspondance about the fact that I'm on long-term sick on SSP potentially affecting my SMP if I continue to be off, if I hadn't have done a little bit of eager beaver reading earlier I would potentially end up very screwed indeed from lack of knowledge about this.

I planned to finish on my due date but in fact went in to labour at 38 weeks while I was at work. If youre well enough, I honestly would recommend working as late as you can. I'd have hated sitting around all uncomfortable wondering if today would be the day. I felt better walking around and keeping busy as sitting was annoying (like an upended tortoise). If you find that you're struggling you can just give notice and stop earlier.