'Reasonable contact' during maternity leave

[Violetbeau]

I'm off on mat leave from April. I'm having a meeting with my manager on Thursday to discuss staying in touch while I'm on leave. The law says my employer is allowed to maintain 'reasonable contact' with me - does anyone have a sense of what that might mean? Or anyone have previous good or bad experiences of staying in touch with employers during mat leave to share?

I want to go into the meeting prepared with what might be acceptable. I generally have a pretty good relationship with my manager, and I'm sure she will accept whatever boundaries I insist on. But she is generally a bit more stressy about work than me, and when she gets stressed she can get a bit micro-managey, and she loves an unnecessary copy-in to an email. We're a small team of 3 (within a much larger organisation) and I get the feeling she's a tiny bit nervous about my mat leave - so I guess I suspect she may push for more contact than I want, and I want to be prepared with what I think is reasonable so I can push back if necessary.

Obviously I'll have KIT days as well, I'm more asking about general contact outside of that and what reasonable expectations might be.

For me, it just meant that I’d reply to messages or phone calls if there was any important info. For example, if there were vaccines available, or a safeguarding meeting that I would be a key witness in.
However, I didn’t hear a peep from them last time except for social invitations and copied into minutes of team meetings once a month or so.
You are on leave on therefore should not be expected to work

We had a form to fill in with; Frequency of contact, method of contact, what sorts of things you want to be updated on. I've chosen once a month via email. Update me on any team/department news or business news (so restructures, people moves etc)

I don't want anything about my day to day job, they'll have cover for that! And I dont think you should be expected to respond to things like that. With a proper handover before you go they should have everything they need. (I guess it also depends on the type of job you have, mine is project based)

Invites to Town Halls, notification of vacancies and having any announcements copied to personal email.

No actual work questions outside of KIT days. Unless it's just asking where something is saved maybe in the first couple of weeks.

Unless you’re off for an unusually short time (< 3 months) they shouldn’t be involving you in anything day to day at all. I’d request I was kept up to date maybe once a month with a team and client update, then also invited to other key events eg townhalls, off sites, social events; plus immediately informed of any material changes that might impact my job like a restructuring or redundancies. But no copying into random emails, no just for your information type things as you’ll be away for ages and can’t spend hours every week processing emails. If she’s nervous maybe agree a timeline eg I won’t look at emails for first 2 weeks, then I will answer essential questions every 3 days for the next 2 weeks that should all be compiled together, then after that I expect no contact except my monthly update.

Reasonable contact should be just as a previous poster has said - like if you know where something is and no one else does, they can contact you to ask where it is. Or at the very most ask a work question if again, it’s detrimental to the business if you knew the answer and no one else did.

But you should not be expected to be working or have your boss call you or message you every day.

Thanks everyone - this is useful!