How long must you return after maternity leave to keep enhanced pay?

[WorkingParent25]

Hi everyone wondering what your maternity pay return to work handcuff clauses are.

by that I mean how long you have to return to work after maternity leave or else have to pay back your enhanced maternity pay?

I understand why companies have them I’m not against them I’m just trying to work out what is standard in the UK. Mine is an entire year which I feel is very long compared to my friends but would welcome a larger sample size. Be helpful if you wouldn’t mind sharing what kind of company you work for. Mine is a media company 500+ employees.

None - international finance services.

I think it can also depend how much the enhancement is. A friend of mine had 6 months full pay, 6 months half pay- that was a considerable enhancement and I think warrants a longer return to work.

Teacher - 13 weeks at full time.

BUT with the caveat that initially my head refused to accept it other than at the main cut off off points (ie Christmas holidays, Easter, end of summer term), telling me it was at her discretion and she was too short staffed. So I went back to pay it back, and ended up staying longer because she wouldn’t accept it. Although we did manage to find a compromise that wasn’t quite to the end of the summer term. I was furious though.

My two employers for my two full-term pregnancies: six months and three months. The first package of enhanced pay was much more generous, though.

It will vary but 3 months is standard I'd say

I think it is entirely fair you return to work after maternity leave or repay the enhanced amount, with the exception of those who have a severely ill / disabled child who is likely to have been in hospital for a lot of the maternity leave. Maternity leave can be really generous for some these days, I know of firms where men now get more paternity leave than I had maternity leave three decades ago.

When I was on maternity leave, there was no period you had to come back to work for (Big 4) although that may have changed since

ive Just found my company currently doesn’t have one, for now. Although they have just increased paternity leave duration, so not sure when they’ll start changing maternity entitlement which is currently 6 months full pay, 3 months half pay.

Its 16 years since I took mat leave but for me it was 3 months return...NHS

3 months. I work in higher education.

13 weeks
Arm’s reach body