Why is it so hard to find company maternity policies?

[TooColdHere]

I've got an interview for a job and a big factor in why I'm looking for a new one is that I want to start a family within the next few years and my current workplace has a terrible maternity policy. The new job pays better too, but having decent maternity policies is important to me. I've looked everywhere online but can't find anything. Why do they make it so hard? Surely it's important to lots of people?

I wouldn’t really expect to readily be able to find a company’s internal policies before I was offered a job there.

I’d just assume they offered statutory and see anything over and above as a bonus good luck for the interview

It's not really the kind of thing that would be available to non staff I don't think. Of course you could ask for a copy but rightly or wrongly this may create the wrong impression of you as a candidate.

Yep,assume statutory- anything different is a bonus.
If the money is better at the new place, maternity policy can't be any worse, so go for it - you never know how long TTC will take, so you need to enjoy your job, and any salary increase you can put aside to take you through mat leave.

Company HR policies are internal documents for current staff to have access to, I wouldn’t expect them to be available to the general public

How big is the company? I’d either call the company reception and ask and even if they put you through to HR you don’t need to give them your details but say you were considering applying for a position and enquire about general company benefits - sick pay / mat leave / annual leave etc.

It's small, it's just a charity, but their pay scales are set by civil service so I wondered if their maternity policy was too...

What is your current company's maternity policy?

I think a lot of people get a bit of a shock when they first look into it (I know I did as it was public sector so I was expecting it to be slightly more generous) but many many places only offer statutory now so anything over statutory is a bonus.

1 weeks paid after two years! And this was advertised as "generous maternity policy"!

You could always wait to be offered the job and then before accepting it ask for a copy of all policies on holidays, parental leave, sick pay etc. They couldn't then rightly withdraw the job offer, and by asking for all of them you just look like you are interested in the whole package. Also, the word doesn't get out that this is the only reason you want to change job.

Also remember that every employer has to comply with the statutory maternity leave. So You are guaranteed a bare minimum.

And also don't assume charities are good employers just because they do nice fluffy feel good work. Some are dreadful. So definitely look into it.

1 weeks paid after two years! And this was advertised as "generous maternity policy"!
That doesn't sound right??!!??

Assume smp . I worked for a charity which had public service based t and cs - sick pay, annual leave, leave for dependents were generous but maternity, redundancy etc was statutory.

Set up a secondary email account with a fake name and send an email enquiry ("I'm considering applying for the job but was wondering what your maternity pay policy is"). That way you get the info without having it reflect badly on your own application.

Assume statutory especially if it's a charity. Good maternity leave policies seem to be a thing of the past.

Are you in the U.K.?