Have you asked for enhanced Mat pay?

[iwasgonnasay]

I work for a small, family run company which has grown tremendously in comparison to when I started in 2010 and financially does very well. I am the longest serving employee who isn't a relation to the owner. I am also the only one who has been on mat leave. The first time, I didn't realise how bad stat mat was, and it crippled us financially. Some years later we have found ourselves surprisingly expecting again. I am only entitled SMP - 6 weeks 90% and £187 p/w thereafter. I want to ask them to consider enhanced mat, to allow me to take 3-6 months mat leave without the financial stress of last time, and allowing me to cover the childcare costs I will then have to find until any free hours kick in the term after 9 months. Of course they're not obligated to do this, I understand that. I would just like to hear from anyone who has asked the question, successful or otherwise and know:
How did you broach it?
What was their response / overall outcome?
Do you wish you'd not asked / asked differently?

allowing me to cover the childcare costs I will then have to find until any free hours kick in the term after 9 months

why are you the one that needs to cover childcare costs?

I have no personal experience of this but many (most?) companies offer some kind of enhanced maternity package. I would look at competitors to the business you work in and see if you can find anything on their websites re what they offer in terms of maternity leave so if/when you raise the issue you can point to it being market practice to offer more than statutory maternity pay.

i did op and was successful

same vibe family business and I was there years!!

management super nice and they really valued me -

I was just honest about it and said look I’m gonna struggle on stat maternity pay and is there any way they were open to a possibility of a better package and I had examples of what other companies offer etc

i ended up getting 5 months full pay

and I came back both times and remain there now

I approached it with the owners and we agreed on a return to work bonus which seemed a fair compromise.

Approach it as a business case.

Enhance mat pay tops up statutory so for the first 6 weeks it’s only 10% to top up. The next 20/33 weeks is £x amount to top up. Also look at KIT days if you space these out you maximise your net pay.

Look at your total reward package i.e. not just salary and work out the total £ values then add in occupational mat pay and work out the % of the package over the 16 years you have worked for them vs retention, added value etc.

No they really don't, I mean public sector do and some bigger private sector do but most people don't get enhanced mat pay.

I know of a situation where the organisation was unable to recruit mat cover and the employee on mat leave asked if she could be paid then as the salary wouldn't be being used - the answer was no. They have a policy and they need to apply it fairly to everyone. They can't pick and choose.

If you don’t ask you don’t get, but the few times I’ve been aware of employees asking at the companies I’ve worked at, it’s been declined without discussion.

Assuming I were off 6 months, I would then have to pay nursery fees to until free hours kick in - believe this will be September 27 as due Nov 26

Well presumably her husband isn’t getting a pay rise for the fact his wife is on maternity, so between them they’re going to need more money to fund it.

While I hate the idea that it’s women who solely pay for childcare, it’s annoying when people pick up on the “I” in these scenarios.

DH and I have entirely joint finances and I will still say things like “I’ll ask for a pay rise this year to fund the extension”. I’m not paying for it alone, but if I have the ability to bring extra money into the house to fund our joint costs then I will, and so will he.

It doesn’t mean she and she alone will be funding childcare costs, but she probably does need to help fund them.

Sorry yes same as @WheretheFishesareFrightening we have completely joint finances. We have 1 account everything goes into and everything comes out of. So any "I" is we.

Thanks for this positive one - having the chat week after next and dreading it. I’ve checked the open policies i can for our competitors and at least 3 have full pay for 6 months plus. Granted they’re a bigger company but we’ve also grown exponentially since I joined and I’m hoping that given they’re not planning on hiring a temp they won’t begrudge me something.

My companies policy was similar to yours - 4 weeks 100% pay + 2 weeks 90% pay then £187 per week.
I was panicking thinking I cannot go back to work after 6 weeks - I am the breadwinner so would need to work.

I am also the first female to take Mat Leave. I spoke to a colleague about this who also mentioned that she’d be planning a family soon and was equally shocked at the policy. She had actually written her masters dissertation about mat/pat leave so helped me write a letter to HR to ask if it could be increased as the company has a discretionary sick pay policy.

It worked!! The company is now giving me 20 weeks full pay.

In my letter i mentioned that my husbands pat leave was better than mine, the sick pay is discretionary so could the mat be discretionary, also I mentioned about other companies in the UK.

I work for an American company so really wasn’t expecting them to change it as the American policy is worse at 2 weeks full pay only. Difference is with the Americans is that they have insurance to top up their Mat leave pay.

Give it a go, it can’t hurt.

Update - sort of - ... I am still none the wiser here.

I had a meeting and put across my request with numerous points, comparisons for other similar companies etc. along with my years of service being touched on. I am still waiting for their "revised offer". I am as certain as can be from comments about it being "worked on" that I am getting something more than just stat. However, I am now 31 weeks and still have no idea when I am going on mat leave or how long for. Every week I am told "definitely will update you next week". They are waiting for customers to come back to them for "benchmarking". It's meant this whole pregnancy has flown by in a blur of financial stress and uncertainty. It's been a tough one anyway for lots of medical reasons and i'm exhausted, having appts every week for numerous infusions and scans. It's made me not buy anything, sort anything, get ready in anyway as I feel like I need to know how tight my budget needs to be before I buy big purchases and the longer it goes on the more stressed I am. I don't know if them leaving it this long is going to mean a better or worse offer. Are they leaving it so there's less chance i'll counter request their "offer"? Am I going to be in a weaker or stronger position with them taking so long to come back to me? Struggling so much I am dreaing they will come to me with something like "you can have 6 weeks full pay!" which they will think is extremely generous (and yes I should be grateful for I know). But to me means I have to back to work pretty much straight away, give a couple weeks for AL i've saved. And I would have rather known i'm having less time than I hoped, much earlier on in the pregnancy than this so I could have made more decisions based on it which you can't really set in stone without knowing! I'll have to burden family for childcare requests as she'll be too young for nursery and I can't afford if no free hours anyway, or previate help. Any words of wisdom / advice / experience very welcome....

Op it is what it is now at this stage I think you need to just be prepared for it to be statutory and plan on that budget

If they leave it at statutory then I’d probably look for a new job while on maternity leave tbh as I’d be pissed off

would you really be that badly off on statutory?? Like what is your monthly income and outgoings at the moment while you are in work?

even when mine dropped to statutory it was still like 800 or whatever a month which isn’t the worst in the world - I was able to still put my 800 into the joint account and it covered the mortgage and bills !

we just massively budgeted for food and I took lunch and coffee out with me and did free things with the baby

with stuff - you don’t barely need anything anyway

clothes, buggy, car seat, cot

We'll cope, you just do don't you, and you get on with it!

Meeting was had today - 20 weeks (5 months) full pay! Feeling very grateful to not have the same initial worry to start every day with. It proves its always worth an ask!