Who covers maternity leave?

[surfcom]

Hello

I am interested in finding out more about how firms cover maternity leave? I think my company (a private property practice) simply absorbs the woman's day to day jobs for 9 to 12 months which strikes me as damaging in a number of ways - your fellow employees resent the additional work, but ultimately when you get back, you've really got to start almost from scratch building up your workload again because inevitably, your 'workload' will diminish in your absence.

I am thinking (kind of seriously) of ditching my current job (I am TTC but the maternity benefits are statutory so no great shakes), and working as a freelancer 'parachuting' in to keep other women's jobs alive. I work in property so I could almost be seen as a 'property poppins'. I undertake the day to day tasks to help out the team, keep her 'seat' warm for her return and then disappear off to help out the next woman.

Grateful for any thoughts. Thanks!

Its up to the firms how they cover. If you are not getting any additional maternity pay from them, only SMP - they will in effect retain what they would have paid you as yr salary. Leaving that free to to pay someone to cover yr post

I wouldn't even consider leaving a job for the reasons you've put forward.

Your company may not employ someone to cover your leave but many companies do. I was covered when I went on maternity leave and when we returned from living abroad I went back into the workforce by covering someone else's maternity leave.

Why are you considering leaving your current job? If it is just because you are not happy with their maternity policy, I wouldn't bother. Many, many companies only offer statutory pay and if you go freelance, you will be self-employed and have to fund your own maternity leave!

surfcom: These people already exist. They're called agency workers or contractors.

I work in public sector(social care) & will not be covered( only get stat pay) and my work is either abandoned or absorbed by the other workers. This depends on how urgent/ statutory it is

i'm in retail and am being covered for my year of maternity leave. i manage a dept and have 20 line reports so it can't really just be absorbed as such.

How is it different to being a temp/agency worker/contractor? Would you specify that you only want maternity cover jobs? Why?

Thanks for your responses. I could of course go freelance and work as a contractor and not limit to maternity leave - I just wondered if there was a 'maternity' angle but I think the real challenge would be simply to go freelance in the first place... terrifying and liberating in equal measure!