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Adding holiday to materbity leave

MrsChuckleMrsChuckle
in Childcare & work
Hi ladies - i know there have been similar questions on here but thought some of you working mums might be able to help me work out what to do with my holiday pay...

I work full time and I'm entitled to 25 days annual leave per year. Our holiday year runs January -December.

My baby is due in August 2010. I haven't decided when I will be going on leave, or how long to take off (39 or 52 weeks), but everything I've read says that I am entitled to the same contractual benefits on maternity leave (except pay).

So let's say I work right till the end of July, am I right in thinking I am entitled to my full 25 days of holiday to use before I go off, or do I get a pro rata amount of days up to my maternity leave date. As my work doesn't give me any additional money on top of SMP it would be fantastic to take 5 weeks paid holiday before I start my maternity leave as it means I can leave work in June :\)

On the flipside, what happens if I don't use the holiday? Will I be paid for it or does it roll over to the new holiday year beginning Jan 2011. That would be great, but can't imagine how that would work. If I take the full year off that means I'll be returning to work July 2011 with potentially 50 days holiday to use by December which is 10 weeks. That means won't go back to work till mid October 2011!

I hope this makes sense. Any advice would be much appreciated!!

Replies

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    MrsTreacleMrsTreacle
    MrsChuckle - you are still entitled to take your holidays. All of them! Or you will lose them.

    You still accrue holidays regardless if your on mat leave or not. So I suppose it would be up to your work if they would allow you to take them all at once and begin your mat leave earlier. I see no reason as to why they wouldn't? I would speak to your manager or HR department.

    I added mine onto the end of my mat leave so I have 4 weeks full pay before starting back work.

    You would also need to ask your work what would happen if you don't use your holidays as some would pay you for them & others won't. Employers are legally obliged to pay for holidays if you don't use them. In a sense if you don't use them you lose them

    The only other thing is that my hols run from Jan-Dec, when I went back to work in October they couldn't account for holidays that I would accure from Oct-Dec cos this was in the future so if you are adding on hols to end of your mat leave it would run from Jan till whenever you go back. Then you would still have some hols left to take once you go back to work

    Hope that makes sense
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    TriTreadTriTread
    As long as you haven't taken any leave before you go on maternity, you should be entitled to the full 25 days off. Check your maternity policy as most companies will want you to tag this onto the beginning or end of your maternity leave. It's also worth finding out if you accrue bank holidays.

    I'm not sure you can add the next year's holiday onto your maternity leave as well i.e. taking 50 days in total. Again, I'd check your company maternity policy.
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    cazzakcazzak
    As the others have siad, it's worth checking with your HR department. I'm not taking any holiday days this year as my leave runs from the end of March to the end of the year and they're going to pay me my daily rate for the holiday that I don't take - money that's going to come in very handy.

    It's also worth discussing with them what happens if you book holiday to take before your leave starts and baby arrives early. Do you get the holiday back? etc.

    Good luck. C x
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