eSignature Legitimacy for Pregnancy Leave Policy in United Kingdom

How to eSign a document: e-signature legitimacy for Pregnancy Leave Policy in United Kingdom

hi I'm Andrew Lloyd I'm head of employment law here at Lloyd Don sisters well this can be broken down into four main rights first of all there's the right to paid time offer an toatal care there's also maternity leave there's the right to maternity pay in some cases and uh more importantly the right not to suffer a detriment as a result of being pregnant or taking time off well before you're entitled to those rights that I've just discussed you first of all need to actually tell your employer that you're pregnant now this needs to be done at least 15 weeks prior um to the expected week of child birth now in some cases of course that's not possible some women believe it or not um don't realize until very late on that they're pregnant um in those C circumstances you need to tell your employer as soon as possible um and in any case you need to uh tell give your employer enough notice prior to when you intend to start maternity leave and therefore receive maternity [Music] pay right now when we talk about antinal care and a time off for it we don't just mean um appointments with midwives or doctors or Consultants we also mean um for instance um antenatal classes so your GP or your Midwife may have recommended that you have parenting classes you know to deal with child birth and and and thereafter so you've got the right to time off to attend all of those sorts of classes as well not just medical ones right well every woman who is an employment in the UK is entitled to take maternity leave it doesn't matter whether you've been there 10 days or 10 years by reason of the fact that you're in employment you qualify for maternity [Music] leave well the good news is is that you get a year you get 52 weeks that you can take off um from your job when you have a baby um you don't have to take all of that but um there is a minimum requirement that you take at least two weeks off after the birth of your child well this is the question on most people's lips um when they come to solist for advice now um not whilst everyone can take maternity leave not everyone gets maternity pay and in order to qualify for maternity pay you need to have been employed um at least 26 weeks before the 15th week of the expected week of child birth and imagine that's a little bit confusing so what what you do you take your expected week of child birth you count back 15 weeks and then you must have been employed for 26 weeks at the 15 week point before child [Music] birth well this is another popular question for the first six weeks of your matern lead you actually get 90% of your salary um thereafter it goes down to £1 135 per week for 33 weeks um now that's just your statutory entitlement it could be you work for a generous employer and as part of your contract of employment there they may be willing to provide you with um a stat a contract payment for perhaps even your whole salary during your maternity leave but um in in terms of the minimum stary entitlement it's 6 weeks 90 90% of your salary and then 33 weeks of £135 now you need to give your employer at least 28 days of when you want to start your maternity pay um and in order to do that you need evidence of when your baby's due now you can do this in one of two ways either you can get a letter from your GP saying when the baby is due or alternatively you can get a certificate called a Matt B1 certificate from your Midwife and that will do the same thing that will say that will say when the baby is due well this is one you need to be very careful with um the Lord does allow you to come back uh for 10 days so that's 10 separate keeping in touch days is what we call them however um that's about it so what you can't do is come back to work for a few weeks and receive maternity pay as soon as you've come back to work you lose your maternity pay well the good news is is that uh even though you're off work um receiving maternity pay you still Actually acrew holiday pay um most women like to take this perhaps a month before their maternity leave starts or alternatively they could take it after and if you can imagine if you're offer a whole year you've got a whole Year's leave to take one way or the other um and uh what we advise our clients to do is perhaps let their employer know well in advance of when they want their maternity leave to start and they get an extra month at the beginning of their maternity leave on full pay or a whole month perhaps at the end of their maternity leave on full pay using their entire holiday entitlement well that depends if you've taken less than 20 6 weeks maternity leave and their full maternity pay you're entitled to come back to exactly the same job that you did before you went off on maternity leave that that's an absolute guarantee if for instance you've taken longer than 26 weeks maternity leave and maternity pay you're entitled to come back to work uh but your employer doesn't necessarily have to give you your exact job he can redeploy you to another role but the important thing about that is the the role that the new role that your employer has given you cannot be any less beneficial to you in terms of pay and conditions so um you can move you to perhaps another department or um a slightly different job role but it must be on same pay or better pay and no worse conditions well unfortunately yes you can however um your employer's decision to select you for redundancy can notot be on the ground of you're pregnant or that you've taken maternity leave or receiving maternity pay that's sex discrimination and if that happens you can make a claim to the employment tribunal unfortunately we get many calls from women who um whose employer is going through a redundancy procedure and it looks like they were the ones selected for redundancy either because they've been forgotten about or um the employer just simply doesn't want to retain employees on maternity leave well the good news is even if you are made redundant you're still entitled to your maternity pay so if for instance whilst you're off on maternity leave your employer gives you notice that you're redundant you still got the right to receive your maternity pay up until the 39 weeks alternatively if you're even dismissed or made redundant before you've gone off maternity leave provided you qualify for maternity pay you'll still get your maternity pay in addition to your redundancy pay well yes you can provided that your employer agrees to it now the important thing is that there's no automatic right to come back to work on part-time hours your right is to come back to the job that you were doing before on no less beneficial pay um so if you if you want to come back to work part-time you're asking your employer to amend your contract now that can be done in agreement with your employer um and you need to submit what we call a request for flexible working you can ask to come back part-time you can even ask if your employer if you can perhaps even work from home a few days just just to ease you back into the working environment if you're employer refuses to allow you flexible working it's not necessarily uh is not necessarily breached your employment contract or breach your employment rights however if the reason why he doesn't want you to come back to work work part-time um is related to your sex again that might be sex discrimination for instance um if the rule is um indirectly discriminate to more women than men you may have a claim for sex discrimination the important thing is to seek advice whenever your employer has refused you to come back uh to work flexibly um it might be that we can persuade the employer to change his mind [Music] right well first of all not every dismissal of a pregnant woman is going to be unfair or sex discrimination the employer may have a perfectly legal valid reason to dismiss the employee however in a lot of cases it's very suspicious and um employers unfortunately still these days still um have a Prejudice towards uh pregnant women they don't want to pay maternity pay they don't want to have to cover their maternity leave and they think the reason to dismiss the employee it could be their work per performance it could be another reason the important thing is if this has happened to you you need to pick up the phone straight away and you need to seek advice from a solicitor you've only got three months from when your employer tells you that you're dismissed to make a claim so time really is of the essence um if this happens to you unfortunately we get uh many calls from women in in similar circumstances we're able to flush the truth out and we've obtained very good settlements for women in the past who have um been dismissed in these [Music] circumstances well the good news is is that uh at Lloyd dony we offer no when no fear agreements U it's called a contingency fear agreement and uh it means that there's no upfront charges and uh you only pay your sister if you've won something and it's normally a percentage of the compensation that you receive [Music]