confused about statutory maternity pay

[tangofandango1]

i’m so confused by all the qualifying week etc etc. can someone please dumb it down for me as i’m baffled - i have a zero hour contract so whichever months count toward smp i would like to know so i can ask for more hours.

my due date is 13th january. does that mean it’s my august and september paychecks that count or have i worked that out wrong

Yes it’ll be your pay you receive between week 17-25

So if we work more hours than we're contracted between 17-25 weeks will that up the pay?

why can’t it just say that online - that makes it so much more simple. thank you!

Yes, if you have capacity to work more in your qualifying weeks (17-25) then you will get more in the first 6 weeks of SMP when you get 90% of your salary. After that with SMP it's a flat rate so makes no difference.

I was very lucky to have a bonus paid a month late with my first baby, and it therefore fell into my qualifying period. Made a huge difference, and I felt like I was quite jammy as I ended up with more money on SMP than I normally take home with my monthly salary, because of the bonus in the qualifying weeks. But those were the rules and HR worked my earnings out so I didn't argue!

Now with my second, I thought about doing extra hours quite early on to bump my pay up. Then forgot. Then it was too late to book extra shifts so I annoyingly missed the boat!

If you have the energy then cram cram cram!