Working for a small company

[AlexaChelsea]

Maternity leave issue.

I work for a small company (6 employees) and I need to tell my boss (the owner) soon that I'm pregnant.

My job is quite specific, but isn't 'skilled' as such, you don't need formal training, just experience.

What will he do? Will he have to get maternity cover for me? Will he then have to pay out two salaries, the maternity cover person, and mine? The company cannot sustain that.

I know the laws etc but in a practical sense, how does this actually work for a small business?

I don't know the specific levels, but for very small companies the SMP is almost fully paid by the Government. I'm sure a lovely HR person will be along soon to give you the specifics, but I seem to recall it is based on the company's PAYE bill.

Here is the link to HMRC website

www.hmrc.gov.uk/payerti/employee/statutory-pay/smp-calc.htm

Whether he gets maternity cover of any kind is entirely up to him. Some small businesses prefer to juggle things and manage without cover, or with less cover, others get a direct replacement in as a temp.

He won't have to pay you salary at all. You'll get SMP as long as you meet the requirements for it, and he'll pay it to you then claim it back from HMRC.

You'll be entitled to paid holiday and other contractual benefits if you have any, so if he does employ a replacement there will be an increased cost there in terms of holiday pay for two people. Plus obviously any recruitment or training costs he may incur.

Hmm.

So he will have to pay someone, plus pay my holiday pay etc?

It's good he can get my SMP back, that's a plus.

They'll have to replace me, they couldn't 'muddle through' for months.

I'm really worried about it.

It depends when in the year your mat leave starts and how long you take. If your holiday year runs from January to December and you started your mat leave on 1st January and took your full entitlement of 52 weeks, you wouldn't actually be entitled to that much holiday. If you haven't taken your holiday entitlement, your employer is not obliged to roll it over. So if you were unable to take holiday because you were on leave, you'd lose your entitlement.

On the other hand, if you only took 26 weeks, you would still be entitled to your full holiday allowance when you returned, so could tack 5 weeks holiday (or however much you get) onto the end of your leave. Then you would be away for 31 weeks in total. If they wanted to get someone in for the whole of the 31 weeks, they would end up paying both of you for those last 5 weeks.

So it depends how you play it really. But it's really only the holiday pay they'd have to duplicate - assuming you only get SMP and no other contractual benefits.

FWIW - I've just returned from my third mat leave working for a small company and it's never been a problem.

He gets your SMP plus a bit extra.

You really mustn't worry about it. He will manage. It's one of those things that happens in business and it's his problem, not yours. You need to focus on you and your baby!

I realise it's not my problem, but there's the owner, then me, then 5 employees under me. So it's a tricky situation, as I don't know how they'll manage. I assume with maternity cover but then I worry about the business sustaining that, and if it can't, will I even have a job to go back to.

They will manage. If the small extra cost involved in maternity cover is really going to tip them over the edge, the owner will have to perhaps recruit part time cover, or temporarily promote someone and add in a bit of extra help at the bottom, or do more of the day to day management him/herself. There are lots of different things that they can do. You can do Keeping in Touch days as well.

Lots of us think we are completely indisposable, but actually, if you were run over by a bus tomorrow, the owner would simply have to find a way to manage, and would do so.

If they promote someone, there won't be a job for me to come back to!

He can't do my job himself - it's not management as such, it's a very specific role.

I guess he'll have to try and get maternity cover. Well, I will have to organise maternity cover!

Well, it would clearly be a temporary promotion! Getting someone to "act up" is often a good way to cover mat leave. It avoids the problem of someone brand new not understanding the business and is also usually cheaper.

But you can't promote someone temporarily.. As in, if you put someone's salary up, you can't then reduce it?

There isn't anyone there that could fill my position anyway, so looks like I will have to get maternity cover.

Why shouldn't you be able to do a temporary promotion if that's what it's advertised as?

Because once someone's wage has increased, you can't then decrease it.

Plus, as a promotion it wouldn't be advertised

Of course you can promote someone temporarily. It's called 'acting up' and they just go back to their normal role when you get back.

Ah I see.

Well these isn't anyone that could do that anyway so, I assume I'll just advertise for maternity cover.

Though, presumably he will have to pay both out salaries for the length of time it takes me to train the cover person, and again upon my return for them to hand everything back over. Though the latter would likely only be a day or two.

There's not a case of him having to do anything.

Once the business owner knows you are pregnant and when you are taking your maternity leave, he will look into what it will cost him, will think about options for covering your role, will cost them out and will then decide what he can afford/what he would like to do.

He may or may not ask for your opinion or help with sorting something out, in which case I am sure he will ask.