KIT Days… gearing up for an argument

[pinkpepperclove]

Meeting with my notorious penny pinching boss about KIT days. Like everyone in the UK I want to use as many as I can to keep some income… but I know he is going to expect the world. He thinks every pound we spend is from his own pocket… (it’s a global conglomerate…)

Company handbook is very light touch and says “training and meetings” nothing at all about whole days of work in the office, which I KNOW he is going to expect.

Any Advice on how you handled it? I really don’t want to be commuting and DD is only 5 months so childcare is super tricky.

Are KIT days funded by the government? Or Employer?

I think all that is meant by this is that (figures invented) - if you would usually earn £200 a day and SMP is £40 a day, the employer has to pay you £160 for the day.

We usually say a couple of KIT days can be used remotely to clear emails and do annual e-learning but the rest are in the office because if you're at home alone who are you keeping in touch with? We can't give usual workload to people on KIT days because there's nothing that can be started and finished in a day, so they're usually used for people to come in for meetings etc, we do pay a full day if someone only comes in for a few hours though and that's on top of enhanced mat pay

Thank you! This is really useful to explain to him what expectations would be knowing as you say, it would be hard to achieve anything in one day.

You do know right, there is absolutely zero obligation for an employer to offer a KIT day right? You are not somehow entitled to them.

This is a generous offer, I work in the public sector, I wouldn't expect a private organisation to match this

A KiT day is a Keeping in Touch day, you do kinda need to go in to keep in toxin with people. I worked fully remotely before maternity leave (covid) but went into the office for KiT days. I did a full day because I wanted a full days pay. DH had the baby, he used annual leave. I would say the only way you can do KiT days remotely is if you mandatory online training that needs to be annually or you need to catch up on legislation changes in your industry.

Mine was slightly different as my maternity cover didn’t start before I’d left so I used my first kit day to do a handover 🙄 and then to also see what my cover had been doing after that. Most of the day was spent with my maternity cover learning about where she’d taken things. However, there is a lot of chat with colleagues because you’ve not seen them for a few months. There is enough work for a day but you’re not getting stuck into a project or onboarding a new client.

I totally realise the money helps but surely the point, for both you and the employer, is that the kit days make your return to work smoother. It’s trying to be practical and keep your skills going.

I have a team member going on maternity and she has asked if she can have kit days to keep upto date with training (profession where rules change and we have regular updates) as she is concerned about knowledge being up to date. That also suits the firm as she then won’t have so much to catch up on when she returns. We can’t allocate her actual work as a day won’t be sufficient

Check when it is actual income from KIT.

I avoided KIT befire 9th month as weekly payments were same as one KIT day a week so I would just end up with nothing extra.

Just chevk how it is calculated and paid.

I only did one KIT day per maternity leave. They were for TOIL, payment wasn't an option. I only did it for fun really, I was able to go in, have a couple of short meetings and lovely long lunch with my boss and some other colleagues and then went home and got a full day's TOIL for about 3 hours in.

I didn't bother with them actually, we didn't have formal childcare while I was on maternity and it would have been a hassle to sort out.
My understanding was also if you did one it would be for a half or full day of work, and my work at the time wasn't really the type of position where you could turn up and work for a day then leave again, would have just been hassle for people to find me stuff to do.
If it was in my job now I would probably still only do it if there was a big team meeting.

But yeah I think your manager has a point, if you're going in to work then surely you do a full day and do something that benefits the company?

"A KiT day is a Keeping in Touch day, you do kinda need to go in to keep in toxin with people."

I know it was a DYAC but I like the idea of a Keep in Toxin day :D

Umm, surely if you go in with the mindset that it will be hard to achieve anything in a day he's going to tell you not to bother then? He's not obliged to accept your request to do KIT days and your posts come across very much as if it will be tricky for you to organise childcare, you don't want to go in the office, you want to do a day's work remotely although you acknowledge that you can't achieve much in one day (unless training or conference etc which you haven't mentioned) and are just doing this to top-up your maternity pay. Why would he say yes to this, regardless of where the money is coming from?

I did a couple of days but they were full days, I had no commuting costs and no childcare costs either.

I didn't bother with my first maternity leave. I won't be bothering with kit days this time either unless I'm needed which I don't think I will be as I have cover. Too much hassle.

I did 1 day per fortnight in the months I wasn't receiving any joy so I stillngot something (especially as it was Xmas with dd1 and summer holidays with the other 2). I was paid for the hours I worked on topnof my maternity leave. I hated my job, but had some lovely friends and we all went for lunch on those days. I enjoyed my jut days!

Will your employer even agree to the kit days, they aren’t under any obligation too . Especially if there isn’t really any benefit to them. In the nhs , kit days are generally approved but they are beneficial all round.