Maternity pay in charities - benchmarking pls share

[Lotsalotsagiggles]

Hi

I'm currently campaigning for our maternity leave pay to be increased and have a benchmarking report to do by Friday

I've googled a lot etc but need some more examples

If anyone in the charity/third sector and happy to share the info I'd be appreciated :)

In the third sector places I’ve worked, admittedly a long time ago, it was minimum required by law.

All my friends who were in the charity sector were on legal minimum.

I have always worked in the charity sector, and my last role (which I left to stay at home with my first child) was fairly senior - statutory maternity pay in every charity I've ever worked in.

I work for a conservation charity and mine is 6 months full pay, 3 months stat and 3 months unpaid and paternity leave is 3 weeks full pay, but appreciate that we are very lucky and this is far from the norm in our sector

Surely it can't be law as some of the big UK charities offer 3-6 months full pay?!

‘The law’ is that government set the statutory minimum of what must be paid and then it is up to each individual company/charity to decide whether to offer enhanced maternity pay above this which can be dependent on going back to work for a certain period after your leave or having to pay back the enhanced pay, but that would depend on your contract

I work for a charity. It's just standard maternity pay. They give a 2k payment when you go off though.

I've worked for a small, medium and a large charity. All offered standard legal minimum mat pay and conditions.

I've worked with a few charities, it was SMP in all of them ie not enhanced by employer.

we changed ours last year to offer 6 months full pay then SMP.

Up until then was the standard SMP - our HR changed the policy as we are struggling with recruitment and retention, and as a charity we cannot offer bonuses or better pay, so we are looking at other ways of making the organisation attractive to work for.

Hopefully our annual leave policy will be looked at next!

@beenrumbled do you mind me asking which charity you work for? Can DM if easier x

Worked for 2 different charities. Happy if you want to pm me for info on my.mat leave.

Yes please @petiteonion

On the app and just trying to work out how to do it

I work for a global organisation which is not for profit, with UK charity status and we get statutory UK maternity pay.

A number of years ago I was talking to someone in Action Aid UK who had carried out a similar benchmarking, might be worth seeing if they could share it? A friend used to get 90% pay for six months, my experience was that charity sector used to be more generous with t and c to make up for lower overall pay but that was based on London-based charities so don't know if it ever applied nationally or if it was representative.

Hi Lotsalotsagiggles, I have just come across your post and was wondering if you had got anywhere with this and what benchmarking info you were able to get?

Many thanks

Managed to do quite a lot of research etc

Do you work for a charity?

I work in the not for profit sector and just get statutory mat pay. 🙁

Yes, I work for a U.K. charity. Did you find that most were only offering statutory unless say you had 2 years+ service ?

Statutory at my current third sector, when I had my daughter I got full pay for 9 weeks, but had to return for a set amount of time or pay it back. I wish more charities would review this, and annual leave!

Found the average mean to actually 12-16 weeks of full pay and more enhanced for those with more than two years service.

We've put in a request through unison so fingers crossed..

Hi, I would love to see what you found in this area, please? My charity offers enhanced pay but is about to drop it and feels like there's nothing we can do about it. It'll still be enhanced so that's something but there'll be a 20% cut.

Is there anywhere that actually shows what charities pay for mat leave? It's usually one of my burning questions to ask but I wouldn't as feel that wouldn't go over well...! Or any suggestions of places that offer great mat pay??

What are they dropping it to?

Hi, I have been tasked with reviewing the family friendly policies at my charity.

While doing so, I would like to tackle the offering as atm it is only SMP, which in my opinion is quite poor.

Would any of you mind sharing what your charities offer with me as not much is available on google?

Many thanks for your help in advance! :)

@Lotsalotsagiggles would you mind sharing what you have found while conducting research when campaigning to increase the offering at your workplace?