Maternity Leave - no clear policy

[RetiredDJ]

Please excuse the long post, but I want to give a little background for my query.
I work for a small ish company (20 people) and hope to become pregnant towards the end of this year.
They are a lovely company to work for and there is a nice atmosphere in the office. I am paid well and lucky enough to receive a bonus too. However in terms of entitlements we are only given them bare minimum. For example - just statutory holidays (freely given but no chance of an increase no matter how long you've worked here).
There is no maternity policy. It was a company started by men and there are only two women (including myself) working here. They're not anti-women, there have been others but they have left for various reasons.
The other lady working here took maternity leave but she had only been working for the company for 5-6 months when she gave birth so I don't believe she would have been entitled to maternity pay? (I haven't asked her so I may be wrong).

When I started here I asked the external HR consultant (no internal HR dept) about putting a maternity policy together. I was compiling a company handbook and was asking for that rather than it being a pointed request. At the time (2 years ago) he said his advice to the company would be that they only provide statutory maternity and that a "return to work" incentive bonus is paid after a certain number of months of the member of staff in question returning to work.

Personally, I would feel more morally obligated to return to work if they had paid me maternity leave above the statutory rather than being tempted by the return to work incentive bonus. Having said that, the "return to work" incentive bonus is not official. It is only what the HR consultant suggested to me when I spoke to him.

So after that long background.. my question is this. Should I say to them that I hope to become pregnant later this year and ask about a potential maternity policy or would I be potentially shooting myself in the foot. Should I keep my mouth shut until (if) I'm lucky enough to fall pregnant and speak to them then?
I should also add that the other lady that took maternity leave is my boss, so I can't ask her and hope she'll keep it a secret.

They are very fair, and generous with salaries but quite tight about "extras/entitlements".

Thank you!

THB alot of small companies ( we are 50 people) will only pay the statutory MP. It comes down to cost. We have to pay for cover and SMP is claimable through PAYE. Anything we pay above and beyond that is not, so therefor we don't.

The company you work for has no policy in place so I would imagine they will adhearing to the statutory pay and leave.

It might be worth you pushing the point now ( not telling them you plan to get pregnant) to get a policy in place, at least you will know where you stand.

Thank you. I'll see if I can bring it up.

If the company has not put a policy in place following that suggested by the HR consultant then they have chosen not to enhance the statutory entitlement.

Personally I would not raise it - but that's because I like my privacy - and I wouldn't want people to know I was ttc - and I'd assume that they'd assume I was.

I totally see where you're coming from HairyTale, and what you're saying makes sense. thank you

Many large companies only offer statutory maternity pay. I did some research looking at factors that influence return rates after maternity leave. Occupational pay of any kind made no difference to return rates. Much more important was if the company was seen to be a good place to work with family friendly policies.

I'd focus on how I could use the acquired good will to my best advantage when I return rather than pay. A flexible, accommodating employer is worth much more than a few extra weeks on full pay.

Agree with Hairy about privacy. I had to tell work about my first pregnancy at 7 weeks because I had dreadful baby brain and was becoming a bit of a liability but that had subsided by week 10. Otherwise my ttc or not as it happened!, my pregnancy, my business.

Thanks Katie!