Maternity leave - accrued holiday

[rue24]

I've been on mat leave for almost a year, this July. I trying to calculate my accrued holiday. I should be entitled to my annual leave of 3 days (25 days AL plus bank holidays) and The 35 days I've accrued whilst on leave. So I'll have 60 days left to use when I return??

Thanks to anyone who can help...

That’s not how it works
you can’t carry forward leave into a new leave year

i would suggest you tack your annual leave you’ve accrued onto the end of the mat leave, get paid for it or carry over what you can

you won’t be able to have 60 days of leave to use

I don’t understand sorry. How many days do you think you have, you put 3. Also when does your leave year start and when did you go on maternity leave?

Hey OP. I’m about to go on Maternity Leave and have accrued 10 days to date so will be taking those before I go on leave. Work have then told me whatever I accrue from mid July to when I go back (probably May) I can use up before I go back. So I’ll basically have the whole of April off with full pay. They’ve told me I don’t have to add it on, I can keep those days accrued and use by end of 2025

Why not check with your employer / HR? But 60 sounds wrong. I’ll have about 30 days total to use, after 10 months maternity leave.

I think you’re double counting OP
you accrue leave over a year
you have 25 days plus BH in a leave year

When you come back to work, you’ll accrue leave again about two days per month give or take but that’s over an entire year

Most workplaces will make us use your accrued leave before you return to work. It makes zero business sense to allow you take double holidays in one year.

Most companies the holiday year is from January - December. So you would have started accruing this years leave from January and say your mat leave ends in July, then you would have accrued 7 months leave when it finishes. You will be allowed to add that on to the end of your maternity. It's likely that last year you would have either taken all your leave prior to going on mat leave or they would have paid it to you, either way it's unlikely they would have allowed you to carry it over into this year.

My workplace added my accrued leave to my leave for the year I returned. I didn't have to tag it on at the end. I had 66 days to use that year. Essentially did a four day week for the year with the odd week off here and there. Bliss!

Depends where you work, our place we accrue everything even the bank holidays from mat leave get carried over so I basically had 2yrs worth of leave to take in year when I came back

Actually you can carry it forward to another holiday year during maternity leave.

OP you really need your have a discus with your workplace about how and when you should take your leave.

realised there's a typo in my post - I meant to say I'm entitled to 33 days per year (including bank holidays). I started my leave last July and will return to work this July... my company adds accrued leave onto annual leave, and we accrue BH too

Did you take any annual leave last year before you went on maternity leave leave? Presumably you took at least 5x bank holidays (New Year, Easter x2, May x2).

So for last year you have accrued 33 days - minus any leave taken before July minus any Bank Holidays taken.

You'll then have 25 days leave for this year plus any Bank Holidays not taken. The other Bank Holidays won't count yet as they are still to come.

And yes, many employers will let you add any untaken leave from last year to the end of your maternity leave.

I’m just back from mat leave. I’ve carried over a year’s worth of accrued annual leave into this holiday year so effectively have double the annual leave I usually would have

It completely depends on the company!
I had my baby in mid 2020 and hadn't taken any 2020 holiday due to covid so came back with nearly 60 days to take in mid 2021. HR allow it (and it wasn't just a covid thing either)

When does your holiday year start? Did you take any before you started Mat leave?

you will have all this year’s left to take as well as accrued but carried over leave from last , but remember it needs to last you to the end of the current holiday year!

Totally depends on your employer - I had to take my accrued leave before returning, then had my leave allowance as normal. Some employers may give you a year to use the accrued leave. I’ve known several people negotiate using their accrued leave to work part time on return - work Mon-Wed, leave Thurs, Fri, giving them 10+ weeks of part time work on full pay.

If they don’t force you to take it, check how much you can carry in to the following year!

I had something like that with DC1 - born in February then I took a year off. The year I returned I took 2 years worth of holiday.

Yeah, the holiday year runs January to December. I took a few days off before I went on mat leave last year

I work in HR and payroll, this is how I would calculate it.

So if your holiday year is January to December. For 2023 you will have 33 days minus how many holidays you took before mat leave and bank holidays, New Years, Easter and both may bank holidays. So 33 minus that total. This is the amount you can carry over.

For 2024 in total you will have 33 days to take. Until the end of July you will have accrued 19.25 days.
If they want you to use that before you return to work, then plus the 2023 and 2024 amounts together. This would leave you 13.75 days to book for the rest of 2024

if they are just saying it is available to use when you want, you have the 2023 figure plus 33 days for this year to use, but you will need to save some for the remaining bank holidays.

My employer are allowing me to carry holidays over. I have 13 days left, this hol year ours runs up until 30th September. I will get 25 days as of Oct 1st so will have 38 days to take after my mat leave ends or I can tag it on to the end.

It depends on your employer. You won't lose the leave you've accrued, but they may prefer you take it before returning from mat leave. I took some before returning, then used the rest to work part-time for a few weeks. They preferred that to taking loads of time off later, leaving them short staffed.
All that is certain is you accrue annual leave while on maternity leave. The rest is between you and your employer, so speak to them.