Maternity leave and holidays

[Bear45]

Hello,

We have factory shut down at Christmas and use our holidays for this (3 days this year) I will be on maternity leave at Christmas do I still use my holidays for it or can I take them with my other holidays?

Also can I take my whole holiday allowance (23 days) before my maternity starts if I don't take any holidays from now till I leave?

It's up to your employer as to whether to can use your holidays before your leave begins or whether you carry some over.

You accrue your holidays while on maternity leave so you cant be using holidays while on leave.

Your first question - the three days aren't used then if you are off on Mat Leave. Theu are just added to your accrued leave.

Your second question - one for your employers I'm afraid. Could maybe suggest possible answers if you can say when your annual leave year runs from and to, and what date you start your Mat Leave.

Yes you should get those 3 days carried over, also any bank holidays that you don’t use will also carry over if you would usually get them off. You can take all your holiday for the year before you leave at my work place, however I am not sure if that works everywhere, I will let others comment. It might work on how much you accrue. I am due to leave in a few weeks at 37 weeks so have used 3 weeks annual leave to take me up to my due date when my official maternity leave will begin. I then also have almost 3 weeks left over (I have 32 days of holiday in total, inc bank holidays) that will carry over into next year.

Some work places do encourage you to use up as much of your holiday as is possible on this side rather than carrying it over. If allowed, I notice that people often favour taking the annual leave on the other side to reduce the amount of non paid maternity leave.

Thank you, I've managed to get the email address of HR so hopefully they'll be able to clarify and confirm

Definitely check with your employer - mine wouldn't let me carry over annual leave so I had to use up what I had left before maternity leave (which is difficult to predict as obvs you don't know when you'll have the baby unless you have a prebooked CS!). I ended up deciding to start maternity leave at 36 weeks, had the baby at 38 weeks and took 4 weeks leave before maternity so finished work at 32 weeks.

Whether the 3 days are annual leave for purposes of maternity leave will depend on your contract and likewise bank holidays, but you should accrue the rest of your leave. Policy for taking it is again down to your employer, whether they have a max 2/3 weeks policy