Bonus pay on maternity leave

[ImYourWomanJonSnow]

Hi MNetters please help, my online search is not yielding anything conclusive.

My company has an annual bonus paid out at Christmas time to all staff through payroll, as ppart of our December salary. It's not mentioned in the contract of employment and it is awarded to all staff if the company makes a profit, which it has done in the previous year. I have started maternity leave 8 months into the financial year. Nobody has mentioned whether I'm going to receive this bonus or bot and before I email my manager to ask I would like to know where I stand legally and how much I can push if they say no.

Contractual bonuses are accrued during Ordinary maternity leave (oml) which is the first 6 months. They are not accrued during Additional Maternity Leave (aml) which is anything over 6 months.

Even if the bonus is discretionary, if it's usually paid out and has been for several years then it becomes a contractual bonus.

There's lots of info here - www.hrlaw.co.uk/site/infobank/infobankarticle/baby_bonuses.html

Thank you RNBrie. That's what I found confusing, I read that page before but didn't realise it was contractual even if it's not written in the contract.

So I should be expecting full bonus given that I worked 8 months plus 4 months I was on OML?

I got mine when I was on maternity leave.

How would you normally be notified? Have they emailed your work email and not contacted you at home? Is it worth speaking to hr

It's a small company blacktea I only found out about the bonus from a colleague. No HR either and as far as I'm aware we don't have a written policy regarding bonuses. This is why I feel I need to inform myself of my rights before I approach my manager.

When I was in maternity leave, I got my bonus when I returned to work, a couple of months after everyone else.

Is this the first year they have paid a bonus or did you recently join the company? If you are new you may have missed the cutoff date for qualifying? My work only pays it after a certain period of employment.

If no one has said anything, I would assume you’re going to get the bonus before mentioning it. If it doesn’t appear, then you can raise it.

I've been with the company fair few years and this is not the first time it has been awarded.

I worry about waiting until after the pay check because I gather there's an amount to be shared between everyone and if I miss out I may just be told that there's no more money to distribute (this may be silly but I'm pretty HR illiterate).