Advice on keeping in touch days in work

[No1worrier]

I hope someone can help, I plan on taking 9 months maternity leave, I am in full time employment and in my roll I deal with my own clients. I have decided I want to check in every now and again to make sure things are going smoothly. I have dealt with some of these clients for years and want to make sure they are being looked after. This will be either from my laptop at home or popping into the office on the odd occasion. I know legally you are allowed 10 kit days. I have a good maternity package with my work so I don't/won't want paid for these days I check in with my clients and most of the time it will be off the record. Is there any way the government will know if I go over the 10 days? I'm just wanting to keep myself right. I know some people will think I'm mad doing what I plan to do but it will help me sleep at night and make my job a hell of a lot easier on my return. I don't mean every day but possibly if you add up the hours it could be a couple of days a month. Thanks in advance!

I can’t help with the enforcement of KIT days but remember you accrue holiday on maternity leave. So you might be able to take day 8 months maternity, during which you could use KIT days, and then one month mostly annual leave but working (say) one day a week.

@OneEpisode thanks for your reply. I am planning on using my holidays to cover a 10th month off which means I won't be officially back at work until January 2023. It's just a bit frustrating that sending and receiving say a call or email will class as 1 full kit day. It will literally take me 5mins in the day to check in on a client. Some of my clients also call my mobile so do I have to ignore them because that would mean I would be using 1 full day? I know you can't answer this but it's what is going through my head Haha!

It’s tough. Your employer may have to instruct your clients not to contact you, take your phone, and may have to close your email account, At my work KIT days can be a bit strange as the mum doesn’t have all her usual accesses. Your employer should have a plan to cover your role and you need to try and live with this, and maybe on KIT days work on something that can be scheduled like client reviews.

I checked my emails and did bits of work/calls all the time that I was on maternity leave - I remember distinctly writing a document for a client with my 3 week old on my lap. I never used KIT days for any of that or expected to be paid and nobody cared at all. In fact, I've just realised I never used my KIT days at all. Oh well!

KIT days are not reported on the monthly submission to HMRC. So from a payroll perspective that's ok.

However your employer needs to record the details of each KIT day. And if they were to have a HMRC audit would be in but trouble.

Might be worth have a look at shared parental and SPLIT day. You get 20 SPLIT days in shared parental. And your DH only needs to take 1 week of it.

@mynameiscalypso see this is probably what will happen in my work, nobody will care or bat an eyelid. They are happy I want to check in on my clients and as I said it's not extra paid work because I already get a good package. I'm doing it off my own back so to speak. I will speak to my employer over the next couple of weeks but I think I am just overthinking it!

@cricketmum84 I read about this but I was a bit confused (never done this before). Do we need to apply for shared parental leave first before being able to do the share parental kit days?

[quote No1worrier]@cricketmum84 I read about this but I was a bit confused (never done this before). Do we need to apply for shared parental leave first before being able to do the share parental kit days?[/quote]
Yes, so you need to follow your company process to curtail your maternity leave and begin shared parental leave. Your husband will also need to apply to his employer to take a week or however much he wants of shared parental. You could work for a week while he looks after baby. It does cut your statutory maternity leave by the amount of time that he uses though.

The benefit of this is that, if you are enjoying doing the extra work and want to continue, you get your 10 KIT days PLUS the 20 SPLIT days on top. Only slight negative could be if your husband's employer aren't as generous as yours with a parental leave package.

Loads of info here: workingfamilies.org.uk/articles/shared-parental-leave-sharing-leave-with-a-partner-or-splitting-up-leave/

@cricketmum84 thank you for that, I'm just not sure if that will work for us, my OH is the main bread winner in the household and does a lot of overtime/working away. I will speak to my boss over the next couple of weeks and see what he suggests, I don't think he has even given a second thought about it. I might need to do a few small things totally off the record and keep my 10 days to when I know I will really need them. I have colleagues that will be picking up my work but me being me I just like to know things are going well.

@No1worrier also check your partners shared parental leave section in his work policy (separate to the paternity leave section). We only realised after being told, but my partner gets 4.5 months full pay to be taken any time in the first year. Friends partners have similar, it seems that many workplaces have updated policies in the last two years or so, which is great.

[quote No1worrier]@cricketmum84 thank you for that, I'm just not sure if that will work for us, my OH is the main bread winner in the household and does a lot of overtime/working away. I will speak to my boss over the next couple of weeks and see what he suggests, I don't think he has even given a second thought about it. I might need to do a few small things totally off the record and keep my 10 days to when I know I will really need them. I have colleagues that will be picking up my work but me being me I just like to know things are going well.[/quote]
Haha yes I'm exactly the same. My teens actually hide my work phone from me when I'm on annual leave because I'm constantly checking in!! I really need to stop doing that....

Also excellent advice from @A1b2c3d4e5f6g7 definitely check in with DHs work about the pay.

But I'm planning to check in just one hour a week, to keep on top of it. Will make me feel better, it's not a requirement. Didn't realise I had to potentially use a KIT day - not fussed re: pay for it.

But my role can't have cover and a small team, so I just want to make sure things are ticking over and I can help out in anything needed. Also told my boss to call me or WhatsApp me on any of my deals any questions come up on. He'll be respectful, as in not call me non stop, and I'll feel better that if anything urgent comes up I'll be kept in the loop

@A1b2c3d4e5f6g7 I will definitely look into but I'm pretty sure it won't be an Avenue we will go down purely because he earns a lot when he packs the overtime and working away in. We have just bought a house that we are completely renovating so can't really spare any incoming cash at the moment.

What you are going to do will be similar to me. That's what frustrated me, checking in for a very short time in one day would technically be classed as a full kit day if it was on the record so I think I will just be keeping most of it off record and maybe use 1 kit day a month when I know I will be using a lot more hours in the day! Thank you

@cricketmum84 oh I've been known to take work calls while lying next to a pool abroad! My partner thinks I'm nuts lol but it's the only way I can relax and sleep well at night

I totally agree @No1worrier! I've just booked 6 days annual leave for the end of this month and I'm already worrying! Last time we went away I spent an entire day making phone calls to sort a payroll crisis. God we really do need to take a step back sometimes.

I got told off by one of our HR team because when I last took a day off I told all the site managers they could still call me if they needed anything.

But seriously though... I do think sometimes you need to take a bit of a step back and relax. Especially with a new baby. (Consider yourself told 😂)

You might find when baby comes, you find it easier to switch off/care less about work than you expect! I found first time round, I cared a lot less than I expected!
In terms of your KIT days, my maternity cover left a few months in first time around, so I negotiated with my boss that I would do 1 day a week split over scattered hours to provide support for them. I contemplated offering to do more, but work actually advised against it as they would have to pay me to do more hours, which would mean I lost my maternity pay/would technically be contracted again, which may leave me vulnerable as I would have put myself on a minimal hours contract. Whilst I trust my company, I didn't want to get shafted!
I'm only paid statutory maternity pay, so with the best will in the world, I won't be working for my company when they aren't paying me!! ;-) Having said that, I have been liaising with colleagues this week, forwarded a few documents etc. But if they want me, they need to pay for me ;-)

My employer took my phone and laptop off me and after a month, made my email account dormant until i returned from mat leave to precisely stop people from "checking in". Do yours not do the same?

@GuidingSpirit no they have said they are happy for me to do as I please. If I want to check in to make sure my clients are being dealt with correctly then that's fine. I'm an account executive so I have my own clients. My colleagues will look after them and I know that but I would still like to be check whenever I want to. It's more a peace of mind for me.

@SillyBry yeah I've also thought that might happen so I'm not committing myself to too much to begin with. I've told my boss maybe 1 or 2 days a month but I will see how it goes. I've not given him set days or anything so I can just come and go as I please.

That's totally understandable if you are not getting paid extra or have a maternity package through your work. I think I'm more inclined to do it since I am lucky enough to have a good package.