Graduated return to work but on annual leave?

[wishIwasonholiday10]

My work allows me to apply for a graduated return to work after maternity leave. Has anyone done this but used accrued annual leave so you are getting some income but not actually working.

I was already planning to use my accrued leave to cover the last 5 weeks of what would be maternity leave to reduce the amount of time with no income. Would it be theoretically possible to apply to work 0.5 FTE for 10 weeks instead? Is there any reason not to do this if work agrees? As well as splitting my income over a longer period I would qualify for an extra term of nursery funding which would be the other big advantage.

So I used my annual leave to go back to work full time but only work 3 days a week, for the first few months. Obviously had to discuss and agree with my manager. It worked well to have that gradual return, for me at work but also my toddler at childcare. It wasn't a flexible working request, just taking annual leave.

You'd need to agree that with HR/Management, I worked in the civil service after I had my 1st and wasn't allowed to use accrued leave within a certain time frame of going back.

I guess it would depend on what your plan is after the 10 weeks? Would you want to remain on 0.5 FTE or go back to how you were before ML?

I intend to go back to how I was before which was actually 0.8 FTE (I just simplified it for the original post).

@wishIwasonholiday10 What you are proposing is a common option and when I was working suggested it to employees.

You have a large amount of leave accrued whilst on maternity leave. Using it to phase your return makes sense for you and the business as it gives them certainty about how you will use your leave.

If you work 0.8 I.e. 4 days, asking to take 2 days leave for 8 weeks means you only work 2 days but get your full (0.8) pay. You use 4 weeks leave but get 8 short weeks.

Talk to HR and your manager and follow up in writing.

It seems like you wouldn’t work at all during those 10 weeks, or did I misunderstand? The request is that you take 10 weeks off of work but be paid for five? Being paid for half of each day.

I went back FT, but took every Friday off for a year using accrued and actual annual leave.

dh was self employed so took Mondays off (and worked a day at weekend instead), so it meant ds was only in nursery 3 days a week for the first year.

Yes, this is what I was proposing in order to get some income during the 3 months unpaid but mostly to qualify for earlier nursery funding.

To get the nursery funding I need to be formally back at work at 10 months but I want to take 12 months off and don’t have 2 months of annual leave.

When was this though? Everyone I know has been able to add their accrued annual leave on to the end of their maternity leave.

So effectively @wishIwasonholiday10 you are requesting a fixed term reduction in fraction and to take your accrued annual leave during that period I think.

From a budget perspective I can't see an issue. However, I think the arrangement bears risk. For you, if the firm finds it only needs you part-time and you have effectively already agreed to part-time hours; also if the firm goes tits up any redundancy payment will be basednon nominal hours for the previous 12 week reference period and they would have to be reduced for audit purposes.

I don't think you can have your cake and eat it. I think you take the five weeks as a/l and go back a bit early for the sake of the nursery fees, or you have your full mat leave and sacrifice the nursery fees.

Sadly, facilitating your nursery fees is not the responsibility of your employer and for them to be audit proof you have to take some of the risk in the event that organisational change due to unavoidable economoc factors occurs.

This doesn’t make sense.

OP is already 0.8 FTE. Even if she took 2 days per week, she is still 0.8 FTE, and just using her holiday. She hasn’t “agreed to part time hours”, she is just taking her statutory holiday!

She would still be receiving her full usual pay for that period, so why do you think redundancy pay would be reduced? It wouldn’t. And what do you mean by “audit purposes”?

Anyway OP - what you are suggesting is quite common IME. I actually have two employer clients right now who encourage staff returning from maternity leave to work part time (using either annual or unpaid leave) and they offer this for up to the first three months when the staff member returns. They do similar for paternity leave too.

Except she isn’t asking to work part time. She is looking to extend the time she isn’t working at all.

But isn't the whole point of the policy to help you with the transition easing you back to work on a reduced basis and to facilitate your transitioning child to child care which can be bumpy
What you're hoping to do is just to elongate the amount of time you have off work which isn't going to achieve any of the objectives of the policy and therefore I think it's not in the spirit of it

On a graduated return, would you still be using a full day's holiday? For the ones I have managed, this has always been the case (i.e.
Even though the graduated return might have been 0.5, it would still be 1.0 holiday taken)

@wishIwasonholiday10 now you have explained it more clearly what you want is 10 weeks off but only have 5 weeks leave.

A graduated or phased return suggests you are doing some work but you don’t want to do any. I can’t see how that works with giving you an income to qualify for funded nursery.

The only option is to apply for 5 weeks leave and 5 weeks unpaid parental leave. Alternate weeks so week 1 paid annual leave week 2 unpaid parental leave etc. This would give you income each month and 10 weeks off.

The other option is if you could work 1 day a week for 5 weeks. This would be a KIT day and bring in some income followed by 5 weeks leave.