Employees on maternity leave and adoption leave are entitled to work during their leave for up to 10 days without their leave being brought to an end or their statutory pay being affected.
Employees on shared parental leave are entitled to work for up to 20 days (in addition to any keeping-in-touch days they take during maternity or adoption leave) without their statutory leave or pay being affected.
As an Employer, we would advise you to make it clear how employees will be paid for working on a keeping-in-touch day, either in their letter setting out their dates for their leave or in their policies within their Employee Handbook.
You should also bear in mind your statutory obligations about paying staff, including the requirement to pay the national minimum wage and your responsibility to ensure that women and men receive equal pay for work of equal value.
If you decide to pay all employees their full contractual pay on keeping-in-touch days, you should also decide whether or not any statutory pay will be offset against the contractual pay or paid in addition, where the keeping-in-touch day falls in a period when the employee is receiving statutory maternity, paternity or adoption pay. For example, if an employee earns £100 contractual pay for each keeping-in-touch day, with statutory pay offset against this, if they work one keeping-in-touch day during a week in which they are receiving the flat rate of statutory maternity pay (SMP), they will be paid £172.48 for the week. The £172.48 SMP will be offset against the employee’s contractual pay for the week. If they work three keeping-in-touch days during a week, they will be paid £300 for the week. Again, their £172.48 SMP will be offset against their contractual pay for the week.
Employers should bear in mind that there may not be much financial incentive for an employee to work during the leave period if they will earn little or nothing above the statutory pay that they would already have received.
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