Maternity leave followed by annual leave - pay question.

[TheDetective]

I work for the NHS and qualify for Occupational Maternity Pay. I am 11 weeks now, so rang HR and payroll to discuss some questions I had with how everything works.

I was hoping use my annual leave (will have 4 weeks from this years leave left) at the end of my maternity leave. I have been told I can't - by HR, and that I must take it before my maternity leave. This means as I already have 2 weeks a/l booked for before my mat leave that I will be finishing work at 34 weeks. I really don't want to finish at 34 weeks. I go overdue, so didn't want to take much time off prior to delivery, and instead, enjoy the time with my baby.

I can only afford to take 6 months maternity leave as it is - I am the main wage earner.

So, I accept this, and then ask about taking 4 weeks from next years leave at the end of mat. leave instead. This is fine, however, I am told that because I will have been on maternity leave prior, and not classed as working, that I will only recieve basic pay. I have got myself completely stressed out now, as that will be another month of lower pay. They say that annual leave averaged payments are calculated from the previous 3 months unsocial hours payments, and that I won't be working so I won't get anything.

Is this correct? I'm unsure, because I thought that you shouldn't get treated any different because of maternity leave. But I don't know. I'm just stressed.

I'll be going back to work after 4 months at this rate, as finances are just too tight to manage.

I also work for the NHS and was also told this by HR, but then read the policy ad discovered it was at the discretion of your manager. My manager preferred me to take the a/l at the end rather than leave early, so no problem. I think this a/l policy is crazy, surely they don't want everyone going off at 34 weeks?!

I had to take my AL before my maternity leave - I started my ML on my due date -

there's two questions here, I think..

1. using annual leave either side of maternity leave
2. the additional unsocialable calculation that is added.

I'm nhs too

1. where annual leave is taken it is up to the discretion of the manager, therefore it's a discussion with them to arrange this. I always agree to use either side. if this is proving difficult you will need to find examples of others that have received this to help your discussions.

2. as said annual leave includes an additional % if you work unsocial hours and as you quite rightly point out this is based on the 3months previous. this can not be changed and is not discriminatory as it is the 3mths prior to any leave period whether you've been off sick or had a month of night duty or on a career break. the next time you are on leave you may have been on day shifts.

my advice would be to negiotate with your manager reagrds annual leave. then request shifts that have the unsocial payments (risk assessment permitting) during the qualifying weeks (approx weeks 24-29); thus you will receive the maximum enhanced maternity pay.

do remember that you will need to officially sign back on to payroll between the period of maternity leave ending and annual leave starting otherwise you will not get paid correctly.

if you intend to request a shorter working week then you could use any outstanding leave to balance this off. e.g. have 10 days a/l owed; successfully achieve a reduced contract from 37.5 to 22.5; then return to work for 7.5 per week, taking 15 per week annual leave and going back to 22.5 after 5 weeks.

just re-read and see you have asked for the following years entitlement to be used. They've agreed to four weeks which is pretty good, even without the enhancement as anything over two weeks is generally seen as a special request and is pretty hard to achieve. Personally, I would be reluctant to do this given that the need to use carers leave or using sick leave may become an issue as young children generally get ill and require their parents to be at home. You must have a good sickness/absence record for them to agree this now.

lastly, you don't need to set anything into "stone" until you provide the matb1 so you've got plenty of time to negiotate.