Taking over maternity leave- extra money??

I_Love_Shoes

I started my job in November and have been getting on quite well but obviously I am still pretty new to things.
We are a very small company, with all the admin and accounts being done between me and my colleague (I do the admin, she does the accounts)
She is due to have a baby this summer and will be handing over most of her work to me, we will probably outsource the accounts but I will be doing all her invoicing, admin etc (which is a huge chunk of her work)
I know she is on a much higher wage than me, am I expected to take on the extra work as part of my job (I'm not exactly swamped in work at the moment) or should I be getting paid extra as I am doing two peoples jobs?
I've never been in this situation before so Im not too sure what the protocol is.
My employers havent mentioned anything about extra pay for me, but I know they could potentially save a lot of money whilst she is on maternity leave and I am on a low wage doing her job as well as mine!

paddedjohn

Not being there 2years will not help you if you refuse to do the extra work, why don't you have a word with your manager they may be planning to get agency cover.

I_Love_Shoes

No they wont be getting agency cover, I'll be doing about 70-80% of her work

getmore4less

discussion need to happen on the total work load and what will and will not be passed over, priority(what can wait) if the load is more than current hours.

Start the training now, get process/procedures documented.

If down to one person, what about sick and holiday cover for the 9-12 months.

Acc72

I_Love_Shoes wrote: »

No they wont be getting agency cover, I'll be doing about 70-80% of her work

So .... if you can continue to do your current job plus 80% of your colleagues job, then really there are not 2 jobs - more like 1.2 full time equivalent jobs ?

If the 0.2 of the job is to be outsourced, then this only leaves a requirement for one full time person.

You need to tread very carefully and seek to understand what their plans are to cover the maternity leave.

Also, what happens if/when your colleague returns to work (wither full or part time) - this is more difficult (if not impossible) to answer, but you need to bear this in mind.

getmore4less

I thought about the how much work is there but the job is relatively new so how did that come about,
Someone leaving
Too much work for one.

Was the pregnancy known about and this job was just forward planning.

The advantage of taking on as much as you can is more experience and in the best position to take over the job if the other person does not come back from maternity.

JimmyTheWig

You're not taking on any more hours. (You need to establish what will happen if you can't get your existing duties and the new tasks done within the allotted time.)
You're not taking on any more responsibility, per-se (e.g. you're not going to be managing staff, etc).
So I'm not sure what there is for you to be paid more for.

She's on a higher wage due to (a) experience and (b) the accounting work that she does. You won't have her experience and you won't be doing the accounting stuff, so again I don't see that you'd be getting extra for it.

However, taking on more work should mean that you will be seen in a good light when it comes to (a) pay reviews or (b) redundancy decisions.

I_Love_Shoes

My job came about because the girl going on maternity leave couldnt cope with her workload and passed a lot of it over to me, so we are going back to where she has been more or less, except the work will now be on my shoulders!

Acc72

I_Love_Shoes wrote: »

My job came about because the girl going on maternity leave couldnt cope with her workload and passed a lot of it over to me, so we are going back to where she has been more or less, except the work will now be on my shoulders!

So, do the company believe that although your colleague could not cope with the workload that you can (with less experience ?).

This is not about money, and you need to understand what your employers plans are (if they have a plan....).

As soon as you mention money then you are effectively saying that if they paid you more then you could cope with the workload, but if they don't pay you more then you can't (which does not make sense - unless you are planning on working additional hours).

Judith_W

I wonder whether you could broach it in terms of a 3 month review and discussion of additional responsibilities/ skills learned and a pay review after 6 months?

I agree that although you are not doing additional hours, they may have been forced to offer a higher salary if the full role had been advertised.

I would suggest going for a request, reflecting the additional skills/workload, but if you're not currently busy I wouldn't hold my breath.

getmore4less

This is one reason I said start the handover process now going through each task, prove you can do them, over time you will be able to do everything required, as you get closer to taking over properly thats the time to review if you want to talk money.

Remember that sometimes people going on maternity need to stop work early so have a plan thath cover the handover process well in advance of target date so you don't get stuck taking over and not having a clue about some tasks.