Maternity Pay

Cranessss

Case closed

Comms69

Basically if the policy is as they say - then nothing you can do about it. The letter was an administrative error.

nicechap

Cranessss said:

Hi All,

Really not sure where to post this but I’d appreciate some advice please. 

My wife and I both work for the same company, myself for just over 2 years and my wife for just under 1.5 years. 

We welcomed our first son on 20th May 2020 and he was due 25th May. Our company offers enhanced maternity pay for those that have worked for the company for 12 months* and here lies the catch. You ask anyone at the company the policy and 99% of people will tell you it’s once you’ve been there 12 months. However, officially the policy and unknown to us is 52 weeks + 12 weeks before your child’s due date. In this case, in hindsight if the due date was 15th June instead of 25th May then we would have qualified.

However, here lies the problem that has torn my wife’s maternity leave to shreds and heaped mounds of worry and anxiety upon her. 

Only a few days ago we noticed her pay for the month of June was slightly lower than usual, we queried it from HR and eventually had a response saying that the previous correspondence that we had in writing in April 2020 confirming that you will indeed receive the full 6 months of enhanced maternity pay followed by 3 months statutory maternity pay was actually incorrect and because of your start date we will only pay you Statutory Maternity pay. 

So, we have it in writing all confirmed that we would receive enhanced pay and we planned accordingly for this making lifestyle changes and decisions to prepare for the arrival of our child. Fast forward 7 weeks after his arrival and only because we noticed a mistake in the wages and raised this, we now have a letter dated July to state we will only receive statutory maternity pay. I can’t help but find this wholeheartedly disgusting and I’m looking for some advice to progress this. I’m trying to resolve it as quickly as possible and dealing with the HR department but I can’t help but feel they won’t resolve this quickly. I’m still waiting on an apology which again I can’t help but find absolutely disgraceful noting that the hurt and worry this has caused my wife who will of course still be feeling the affects of childbirth and all the fun of the circus that brings to your hormones. 

To clarify, April 2020 confirmation in writing full maternity enhanced pay will be given

July 2020, wages queried and an updated letter sent to state we are not entitled to maternity pay and they made a mistake. 

Hope that makes sense and any advice at all would be appreciated. Also, if there is a better place on the forum for this, please do let me know.

Is there anyone else at the company who has received full maternity pay for similar length of employment (or less)? If so, that might indicate custom & practice is to pay it and with the April communication would be useful to challenge their decision. Her union would be the natural place to help navigate the process.

LilElvis

Was the company's maternity policy not available to you in either a staff handbook of via their intranet?

KatrinaWaves

Yes but you also had the opportunity to work out what she would be paid based on the policy, it was there in black and white. 

You chose to not do your own calculation and realise they were paying you more. You made a mistake, they made a mistake, it doesn’t mean she’s entitled to more money. 

Takeaway_Addict

Why was the policy unknown? Is it not in the handbook?

Cranessss

The full policy is listed on the company intranet. I’d love to know why it was unknown to the point of writing a letter to us by those who’s job it is to enforce the policy. It is our job to fill out the forms to inform the company that we intend to take maternity leave. It’s then the responsibility of HR to write back and explain what you’re entitled to be paid and their decision is supported by policy. They of course messed this up and it’s worth noting that at no point do you ‘choose’ the level of maternity pay as an employee. This is purely decided by HR so why would we even question their decision when they they’ve made it and written to us. We were under the impression we were entitled to it so had no reason to question anything until they processed the pay incorrectly in terms of what they had communicated to us. 

I completely appreciate the point of policy is policy etc but morally, they have screwed up here.

es5595

You say you made financial arrangements based on that letter, as such, you need to quantify how how much are now out of pocket, if there is anything you can do to minimise these expenses, and then a LBA requesting the difference. 

As has already been mentioned, has anyone else worked for less than (52+12 or 52+15) weeks and received full pay? As such, you could be looking at a precedence and/or discrimination claim. 

Cranessss

es5595 said:

You say you made financial arrangements based on that letter, as such, you need to quantify how how much are now out of pocket, if there is anything you can do to minimise these expenses, and then a LBA requesting the difference. 

As has already been mentioned, has anyone else worked for less than (52+12 or 52+15) weeks and received full pay? As such, you could be looking at a precedence and/or discrimination claim. 

May be a stupid question but how can I find out if anyone has received it before the policy stated timescale? Is this a question to HR rather than happening to know someone that has?

With reference to an LBA, I’m assuming you’re referencing a Letter Before Action to recover those funds lost by us due to the understanding of the correspondence we received? 

Thank you for your time

pinkshoes

If the policy says 1 year and 12 weeks, then this is surely what you then based your original calculation on? (E.g. you must have had a plan based on the lower amount).

When you got the letter stating otherwise, then you came up with a plan B.

Given the policy said one thing and the letter said another, why did you not think to question this discrepancy?

You only changed to plan B 3 months ago, so why not just go back to plan A? What has changed with your finances in 3 months that you cannot go back to your original budget with statutory maternity pay?