Repayment clauses on maternity leave

[fatpony]

Hi all,
I work for a small company and we are in the process of coming up with a maternity package/policy - mainly for me as while we have had lots of dads in the company have children, I am the first woman.
We're looking at doing 5-6 months full pay and then SMP for the remainder for someone who has been at the company for 24 months. One of the directors is asking about a repayment 'clause' for if the person doesn't return to work after the end of maternity leave.
Does anyone know if there is an average or standard on this? Does it tend to be focused on 'repay the money' or 'work for the same period you had off' or something like that? Needs to be fair...
Thanks!

Whilst you're drafting this, are you also going to include the option for dads to make some of the mum's parental leave to be at home with baby? It would make sense to get both mums and dads' options covered by the policy whilst it's still at this stage.

5-6 months is very generous - lucky you!

NHS (as I understand) has a 15 week clause - return to work for 15 weeks or repay everything over and above the SMP allowance. Deduct off holiday accrued.

When I was NHS it was 3 months. Which in all honesty wasn't really enough. I moved out of the area and couldn't return to my previous job and nothing with the NHS came up in the new area. I explained the situation - I couldn't return for any more than the 3 months and I couldn't afford to pay back the maternity pay. I calculated that once I had taken the annual leave accrued over my mat leave, as well as the leave I would accrue in the 3 months, I would have had to go back for something like 12 days. I offered to either do this (for which they would have paid me 3 months pay), or to forfeit the annual leave pay accrued to me over my mat leave and call it quits. Unsurprisingly they took the latter option - meaning they could offer my mat leave replacement a substantive post and saved themselves the few thousand pounds they would have had to pay me for 12 days work. I had a good relationship with them and I had been with them for a number of years and it made better financial sense for them.

So....if you don't want that happening then you need to have a longer repayment period. And yes to including father's too. I'm fairly sure it is becoming law quite soon that father's can take half the leave? And it would have to be an equitable policy for them as well.

I worked for a private company. They did 6 weeks full pay, 6 half then smp. On return to work after mater ity a bonus is paid of one months salary on your previous salary (so not affected by part time return to work). If you leave within a year you pay the bonus back incrementally in twelfths. But not the pay you received during maternity. Does that make sense?

For employees with more than 2 years service (at the 15th week before the Expected Week of Confinement (EWC)), the company I work for pays a lump sum of 4 weeks on commencing maternity leave, then 2 weeks additional pay for the first 5 months after returning.

The 4 week lump sum isn't repayable if an employee doesn't return from maternity leave.

The 2 weeks additional pay for 5 months after returning is only payable if the woman returns and works the full five months and is paid based on the salary they return to, ie. if they return part-time the payments are based on the part-time salary. You might want to think about how you'd handle it if someone gets 5 - 6 months company maternity pay based on a full-time salary, but then only returns 2 or 3 days a week - would that be okay?

Also, what if someone comes back and they're already pregnant with their next baby (not that unusual now maternity leave can be up to 12 months long) and can't work the same period they had off?

5-6 months full pay is extraordinarily generous - are your employers aware of that?

Yes, a repayment clause would usually be along the lines of return to work for x months (sometimes with sickness clauses) or repay anything over SMP

I work for a FTSE 250 business. We get 6 months full pay and have to repay if we don't stay for 6 months on our return.

Thanks, will look at these. Yes they are aware but it is something we want to do to be a good company - we pay our interns etc. We have benchmarked against a range of other companies' policies - CBRE does 24 weeks, as does a utility company, one law firm we looked at did 20 weeks, DEFRA (civil service) does 24 weeks I think - all off the top of my head. E&Y does 16 full, 12 half.

We're also looking at the additional paternity leave thing.

I work for a big multinational- 6 months on full pay plus holidays. Very generous. There is obviously a repayment clause- you have to return to work for 6 months after the end of maternity leave or repay the additional maternity pay. It's staggered- if you didn't come back at all you'd have to repay the lot, if you left after 5 months of being back then you'd have to repay 1/6.

The maternity offering by my employer includes a clause that you must return to work for AT LEAST 6 months after the end of maternity leave, otherwise you'd have to pay back the 'additional' maternity pay that you have received i.e. anything over-and-above statutory.

My firm pays 20 weeks full pay. You have to repay unless you come back to work for at least 6 months. Repayment is staggerd as stoops describes.

However - one thing that is unclear is what happens if an employee gets pregnant again very quickly, and hence goes on 2nd maternity leave pretty much straight after 1st maternity leave ends. Does this count as "returning to work" so that they don't have to repay? I think so but it's untested. You might want to think about what you want to happen in this scenario.

My firm (large multinational) gives six months fully paid and there is no repayment clause. I only know one person who did not return to work after mat leave because it is generally a good employer and will allow a reasonable amount of flexibility for returning mothers so nobody wants to leave.

On the other hand a previous employer I worked for does have a repayment clause and most people come back for the minimum amount of time they need to to avoid repayment. Most of the mothers I know who work there don't feel that any flexible terms they have negotiated are honoured (lots of unpaid overtime for part timers) and career prospects are damaged once you come back from mat leave.

I'd say the key to retaining staff after maternity leave has very little to do with golden handcuffs in the guise of repayment clauses if that is what they are trying to achieve.

We get 6months full, then 3 months SMP then 3 months unpaid. If we don't return for 12 months we have to pay back something like 12 weeks pay, less what SMP would have been for that 12 weeks. Pro ratad if you come back but for