Maternity and annual leave

[ftm97001]

Hey everyone,

hoping you can help. I started my job last July and my baby is due the 18th of June this year. Our holiday entitlement runs from January to December and I have been told I won’t be eligible to take my annual leave (20 days plus 8 days bank holiday) before I go on maternity leave because I have only been there for 6 months. Does this sound right? I only had about 6 holidays or so to use for the rest of the year last year which I totally understand as I hadn’t worked the full year, however I’m surely entitled to all my holidays this year as I’ll still be employed just in maternity leave?

hope this makes sense

Will you be able to carry some over and use them after your leave?

@ftm97001 some places have a policy for the first six months that you can only take what you accrue etc. however, you can carry any holiday that you don't use over to next year, they can't pay you for it/ say to you that you'll lose it. Quite often people put as much on the end of mat leave as it's a nice paid period before returning to work :)

@dementedpixie i will have to clarify this tomorrow I was just told today that I would have no holidays to take before June

@ThelastRolo20 ah hopefully I can then but from what I gathered from the conversation I was being told because I’ve only worked there for 6 months now I’m not entitled to any holidays this year before or after maternity

Your holidays will accrue during maternity leave so if you can't take them before you should be able to take them afterwards or they will be discriminating against you for being pregnant

When are you planning on starting your leave? Surely you'll have some annual leave to take before maternity starts.

@dementedpixie I was planning on starting maternity leave on the 31st of June however I was going to take the 20 days holiday before then to finish earlier however that’s when I was told today I wouldn’t have any holidays as I’ve only been there 6 months, this just doesn’t make any sense to me

You’ll be allowed to take the holidays that you have accrued in that time before you start your mat leave. It’s very standard and protects the business from employees over taking their balance and then leaving without being able to repay the overused holidays. Its totally company discretion to allow the full balance to be used in advance of the leave starting.

It’s a legal requirement for holidays to accrue on mat leave so you’ll be allowed to use them at the end of your leave before you return or they’ll be added to your balance to take through a period of time. Most places say carried over days must be used in a certain time frame.

No that's not correct,

Even if they only allow you to take holiday you have accrued before MAT leave, you will have accrued 14 days from the start of the holiday year to 30th June.

You only get statutory holidays, so if you do not work bank holidays you will use 5 days for the bank holidays up to June 2024, which leaves 9 remaining.

You would then have another 14 days to carry over after your maternity leave finishes.

It is strange to only let people take accrued holidays when going on MAT leave, they absolutely cannot stop you taking any holidays "because you are going on maternity leave", but they can not approve holidays if they have a justified business reason for this- however to not allow any holidays in 6 months would go against any health/work life balance benefits of what annual leave is for and I would be challenging this.

You should be able to take up to ½ the holidays if you will be there for 6 months before your maternity leave starts.

I’ve been told this week that you are also entitled to all bank holidays accrued during maternity leave (provided your paid for these) which is something I didn’t know.
Good luck on the rest of your pregnancy :)