company has no maternity policy

Casey_81

hi all,

I am approx 6 weeks pregnant - early days I know, but I am a natural planner and wanted to check my rights etc re maternity leave...

I work for a small software development company (~30 people), it is a start-up that has rapidly expanded in the last year. I started there one year ago, and at the time of signing my contract was informed that I would receive a HR handbook soon... one year later no sign of said Hr handbook. Which leaves me in the position where I will (hopefully) be taking maternity leave at the end of August, but with no guarantee that I will receive any maternity payment from my employer.

Is anyone else in a similar scenario?

Thanks

cram1971

My understanding is you will just be entitled to state maternity benefit your employer at their discretion may top up the state benefit. Some company's have policy's on this some look at it on a case by case situation,

Best of luck with the pregnancy

Butterflylove

My company dont provide anything related to maternity
I am due to start my leave at the end of April

My employer isnt contributing to my benefit which isnt legally required unless signed into my contact, (Which its not, we're a small company aswell, as he has to employ someone to cover me for my maternity leave, I do understand in these times why he has chose not to 'top' up my wages by the amount I will be down a month)

I will be recieving maternity benefit from the state of a max of €262 a week (to find out how much a week - take your net wages for the tax year 2010 @80% divide by number of weeks you worked throughout the year which would give you a figure subject to a maxuim of €262) so I will be down 400+ a month which we've budgeted for,

Casey_81

Thanks for the info.

I guess I'd better ramp up my savings so... my partner had intended on giving up his job and going back to college (I am the primary earner in our house), but I guess he will have to postpone that for a year.

I am having an early scan in Feb, so was planning on telling my employer after that.. who knows they may surprise me...

Kitty2011

I work for a large company who do actually pay us maternity.. I get the standard state payment and then they deduct this from my monthly salary and pay me the remainder... So for instance in 2008 I would have got €287 a week from the state and then a monthly top up of my wages for 22 weeks (state payment is for 26weeks ).

Am going on maternity now again in May and I think with all the tax deductions etc it is about €262 a week state payment.

But maternity is never standard or can be very hard to find standard practice. In my job some people in the country offices report to Dublin and others report to Limerick, however in 2008 I sat beside a girl who went on maternity leave 3 weeks prior to me and when i was on maternity leave I was advised we won't get paid our bonus which I thought fair enough I wasn't there for the period of a performance review so can see why I wouldn't get paid.

However it turns out this is only a different rule depending on which HR department you report to even though its under the same company. The other girl that left 3 weeks prior reported to dublin and she got paid a full bonus however I got nothing and when questioned this my company advised there are now streamlining things to ensure that all departments are alligned as it was noticed before that maternity bonus was always paid to dublin staff and not to limerick... So going forward now limerick staff will be due a bonus ....

I know I'm lucky to be paid at all but its just the fact that they treat individuals on the same bonus scheme different just because they report to a different area seems really unfair.... but you can't argue with HR.

egan2020

I'm in the same position as Butterfly Love. Going on maternity in mid-April. Most people I know that work for small companies do not get a top up from their employer. I'll be getting 262 euro a week. Think it was 290 last time I was on maternity in 2002. Slightly off topic but I don't think it was fair that maternity benefit was included in cutbacks in the recent budgets. It's based on PRSI contributions so I don't really see it like "free money" and in my case like lots of other people, you can't avail of rent allowance or help with mortgage like you would if you were on other social welfare benefits like jobseekers or one parent family.

Butterflylove

Casey_81 wrote: »

Thanks for the info.

I guess I'd better ramp up my savings so... my partner had intended on giving up his job and going back to college (I am the primary earner in our house), but I guess he will have to postpone that for a year.

I am having an early scan in Feb, so was planning on telling my employer after that.. who knows they may surprise me...

To be honest while babies can be expensive its not impossible, we have saved what we could from when we found out back in september till now about 2k, we were really strict not going out limited spending at christmas
we have spent about half of that on everything we needed for babs.


We shopped around got second hand things off family and friends that were still in great nick.

Sister is getting our pram as gift, best friend is giving me a car seat that is like new everything else we either got off someone through handmedowns or gifts or in the sales were still saving so when Im on maternity leave we could half the wages we're down even,

liliq

Slightly off topic again- but does anyone happen to know if there is any type of state maternity benefit that isn't based on PRSI?
I'm a postgrad student, which is full time and I get paid a minimal stipend, but because this isn't taxable I haven't been paying PRSI for the last couple of years...

cram1971

Call down to you local social wellfare office or citzen info office, my wife is currently pregnant and they have been very helpfull (getting nothing tho due to me earning over 26k and her been out of work for more than 2 years)I guess I am saying it will depend on you situation

Casey_81

Thats a great idea about getting things we will need as pressies instead of clothes etc.. im lucky enough that two close cousins are having babies in May/June this year, so hopefully I'll be able to get some hand-me-downs from them. My sister already said I could have her bottle heater and car seat, so will just have to get a cot & buggy etc...

But I have to say that its more the loss of income that is bothering me.. I might be able to work something out with my employer where they would average my salary out over the year so that i would still have an income

Butterflylove

Casey that is a good idea if it suits your suitation try anyway you can not to leave yourself short we're lucky were moving into cheaper accomdation so it evens out for us.

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/social_welfare/social_welfare_payments/social_welfare_payments_to_families_and_children/maternity_benefit.html

this link has alot of basic information on it in relation to maternity benefit if you have any questions the girls and guys are sooo helpful make sure your aware of your entitlements and dont go into it blind!

pollypocket10

You aren't legally entitled to anything from your employer, although some do top-up the state payment. Some even pay a "return to work" bonus so instead of topping up your pay, you get a lump sum when you go back to work.

If there isn't a policy it's generally at their discretion so best thing you can do is ask. In my company it's at their discretion so I had to bite the bullet myself a few weeks ago and ask but thankfully they are going to top it up which I am very grateful for.

To calculate what you are entitled to in state payment you need to base it on the tax year before last, so in your case (and mine) you would base in on your income in 2009.

lynski

Kitty2011 wrote: »

I was advised we won't get paid our bonus which I thought fair enough I wasn't there for the period of a performance review so can see why I wouldn't get paid.


I know I'm lucky to be paid at all but its just the fact that they treat individuals on the same bonus scheme different just because they report to a different area seems really unfair.... but you can't argue with HR.

Both companies I worked for paid my bonus because quite a large portion was based on company performance and subordinates performance.
You should look at the criteria of your KPIs.

Casey_81

pollypocket10 wrote: »

You aren't legally entitled to anything from your employer, although some do top-up the state payment. Some even pay a "return to work" bonus so instead of topping up your pay, you get a lump sum when you go back to work.

If there isn't a policy it's generally at their discretion so best thing you can do is ask. In my company it's at their discretion so I had to bite the bullet myself a few weeks ago and ask but thankfully they are going to top it up which I am very grateful for.

To calculate what you are entitled to in state payment you need to base it on the tax year before last, so in your case (and mine) you would base in on your income in 2009.

Guess I'll have to cross that bridge when I get there re top-up or lump return to work payments..

I had a look at the citizen information site, and I qualify under the first clause
"At least 39 weeks PRSI paid in the 12-month period before the first day of your maternity leave", I don't qualify under the 2009 assessment as I was in full time education during that year.

Casey_81

Butterflylove wrote: »

Casey that is a good idea if it suits your suitation try anyway you can not to leave yourself short we're lucky were moving into cheaper accomdation so it evens out for us.

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/social_welfare/social_welfare_payments/social_welfare_payments_to_families_and_children/maternity_benefit.html

this link has alot of basic information on it in relation to maternity benefit if you have any questions the girls and guys are sooo helpful make sure your aware of your entitlements and dont go into it blind!

Thanks for the link, am a bit less stressed out about the financial arrangements now... the only thing left to worry about now is the actual pregnancy now

pollypocket10

Casey_81 wrote: »

Guess I'll have to cross that bridge when I get there re top-up or lump return to work payments..

I had a look at the citizen information site, and I qualify under the first clause
"At least 39 weeks PRSI paid in the 12-month period before the first day of your maternity leave", I don't qualify under the 2009 assessment as I was in full time education during that year.

Hi Casey even though you qualify under that clause, for the purposes of calculating the actual amount they will look at your income for the year 2009. (i know way too much about this because I am studying it at the moment. If you go to the Rates on the citizens information page it explains how the calculations are made.

There will be PRSI contributions credited to you because you were in education that year but I think you might only qualify for the minimum amount.

You can actually ring up and they will tell you the amount though. HTH

Maternity Benefit Section

Department of Social Protection
McCarter's Road
Ardarvan
Buncrana
Donegal
Ireland
Tel: (01) 471 5898
Locall: 1890 690 690
Homepage: http://www.welfare.ie