Clicky: New employee maternity leave policy

[AmyRI]

s/o of glauren 's post about her job offer.

At your current company, when is a new female employee eligible for maternity leave? Fully paid, partially paid, or unpaid - just talking the guarantee that you have a job when you return from leave.

Disregard paternity leave policies for the purposes of this poll - I am interested in the benefits for the spouse that carries the child and would qualify for disability/sick and parental leave.

Clicky options:
Immediately
After 3 months
After 6 months
After 9 months
After 1 year
Never

You can vote up to twice, once for your company and once for your SO's company if you know their policies.

Feel free to expand on if/when maternity leave is paid, and what the policies were at previous employers.

[Deleted]

Job protection after a year of service, but benefits may be paid by the government based on total employment hours over the past year. So you could get your EI, but lose your job.

[redheadbaker]

I'm a contractor for an agency. No maternity leave policy. I'm lucky to get paid holidays.

[AmyRI]

I am a Fed. Maternity leave can be taken on accrued PTO, which new employees accrue sick+vacation at a rate of 4 hours a week. So if your LMP was the day you started, you could get to 4 weeks of paid leave (assuming you took zero hours for any reason before the baby came). Job protection beyond PTO does not happen until you hit 1 year and qualify for FMLA. There is no short term disability insurance or paid parental leave.

DH works for a private company. No job protection until 1 year when FMLA kicks in. Maternity leave is covered by the state-run short term disability policy which, I THINK, is effective as soon as you've been paid once. Rhode Island now also has paid parental leave which I am unfamiliar with, but I think it would kick in for 6 weeks after STD ends to get you to 12 weeks of FMLA with some level of pay.

[miamigirl]

My company only offers FMLA, and requires one year before you can take it.

[Deleted]

Ours is covered by FMLA and our state policies. I am lucky that NJ offers 6 weeks STD but the first week is unpaid and then the next weeks are at 66% of your salary up to like $600. Then they have NJ FLI which covers another 6 weeks at this rate.

[fortnightlily]

8 day waiting period after the birth, and must be a full-time employee to exercise Short-Term Disability, with is effectively 5 or 7 weeks at 60% pay, but I don't believe there's otherwise any limitation on how long you've been employed by the company.

1 year waiting period for unpaid FMLA, per federal law.

My company just switched to unlimited PTO, so that's entirely at the discretion of your manager, basically, but it's not intended to cover medical events that necessitate disability claims, like maternity leave. But I imagine you could negotiate with your boss to take some more time (within reason) after the STD period is up.

[bowies]

You know, I'm not really sure. I *think* it's a year. I know at a year is when STD benefits kick in.

I would be shocked if the company I worked for didn't offer FMLA terms (12 weeks unpaid) if a new hire was pregnant. At least.

ETA: I was correct, and the 2 weeks of PTO gifted to all new parents (mom or dad) is regardless of how long you've been at the company.

[InBetweenDays]

I work for a state university. We follow FMLA, and have to be employed for a total 12 months (doesn't have to be the previous 12 months, just a total of 12 months over the previous 7 years) to be eligible. We get 4 months off and can use a combination of sick leave (up to 10 days), annual leave, personal holiday (1 day) and compensatory time and then the rest is unpaid leave.

[purplecow0206]

We have a 6 week parental leave policy that anyone can take advantage of as soon as they start, with FMLA and STD (6 weeks fully paid for vaginal birth and additional 2 weeks at 80% or so for c-section) kicking in after the first year. It's a really good policy and I feel lucky it's available.

[pinkdutchtulips]

SS

I was hired by my former firm when I was 5 1/2 months pg w DD. I negotiated a 6-8 wk UNPAID leave (I ended up taking 7 wks) that was incorporated into my revised offer letter. It was a wild 24 hours waiting for the partners to get back to re approval since the pg announcement blindsided them. When I returned I still had my position. I consider myself ridiculously lucky considering my industry - law.

After dd was born when I realized I was part of the OAD club, I didn't pay much attention to my firm's mat leave policy.

[pinotgrig]

FMLA after 1 year

Company paid STD after 6 months but I think a leave related to pg may have a 9 month waiting period. I remember hearing that once but didn't pay much attention since it didn't apply to me.

[awkwardpenguin]

FMLA/STD/PTO model here. FMLA is effective after a year. Due to waiting periods, STD starts covering maternity 15 months after the 1st of the month following your start date as long as you enroll right when you are hired. PTO accrues right away and you are eligible to take it right away too, but you'd only have about 3 weeks if you were pregnant when you started.

DW's work offers 6 weeks paid leave after a year, plus a weird smattering of sick time, vacation time, and unpaid leave policies. If you'd been there less than a year, you'd be eligible to use sick time (18 days on Jan 1 each year, plus a pro-rated number in the year you start) and accrued vacation.

In practice, both our employers would probably allow someone new to take 12 weeks unpaid leave and come back even without the FMLA job protection.

[Deleted]

FMLA after a year, but they aren't going to fire you if you're under. Unpaid either way unless you have PTO Bank.

[djc315]

STD kicks in the first day of the month following your first full month of employment.

No maternity leave.

[Koala]

I voted "never" because I work for a small company that doesn't qualify for FMLA and doesn't have a real leave policy.
I was only the second person in recent history (the last 7 or 8 years) that needed to take maternity leave (a few people have taken 2 week paternity leaves, but I think they used vacation).
My leave was not paid at all, but I had no fear about losing my job, even though I had only been back at this job for 10 months when I started my leave.

[niq]

The Handbook says FMLA doesn't start until you've been here a year. But the sections on paid maternity leave (12 weeks) and parental leave (4 weeks) don't say anything about how long you've been there. I assume in practice it's a year, but I don't know if anybody's tested it.

[lishie]

I got pregnant two months after starting my position.

We don't offer paid maternity leave, but I was able to work it out with my boss to take a 14 week unpaid leave.

I wasn't able to invoke FMLA though because I hadn't been there a year.

[biscoffcookies]

I'm a fed, and so things can be very different depending on your specific supervisor and what they will approve. I am lucky to have really great bosses, so if someone came in and shortly thereafter needed to take unpaid leave for maternity they would have no problem with it even though that person would not be eligible for FMLA. Similarly, they are very flexible on timing (e.g. they had no problems with me taking almost 6 months, most of it unpaid, with my first) and didn't require me to invoke my FMLA protection for either baby (I could have if I wanted, but I didn't feel the need to since I have a good relationship with and trust them).

[bcv513]

FMLA takes a year. State maternity leave of 4 weeks paid works immediately

[mtngirl]

My company has no policy. By state law, I think immediately for unpaid leave.

[krystee]

Our new policy says baby= 12 weeks paid. It does not specify tenure of any kind.

[halfpint]

STD would kick in the first of the month after start date. How much of that is paid at 100% depends on years of service. So, covered for 6 or 8 weeks depending on how doctor fills out the disability form. No FMLA until 12 months of service.

I'm guessing an employee could get some additional unpaid leave if needed, we tend not to be dicks in my experience. Also we have offices in places with more robust state laws, so to be consistent, we might lean toward the more generous law. I'm purely guessing, though, I'm not involved in that aspect of HR.

[moopoint17]

Job protection is guaranteed immediately.

However, only after a year do you get 13 weeks at 100% pay (after exhausting PTO). I think it's phased if you're there less than a year. A co-worker was due a week after her 1 year anniversary but she delivered 4 weeks early. She was paid for 6 weeks at 100% since her PTO couldn't make up the difference.

[magpie]

ours is unpaid, but FMLA protection kicks in at 1 year, I think.

[SallySparrow]

A year for FMLA. And STD only applies if you aren't pregnant at the time you sign up for it. (Through the company.)

My current employer has a 6 week emergency personal leave that I'm using for 6 weeks unpaid. Then I'm going back on the schedule PRN, but they aren't going to utilize me until I'm medically cleared/until 8 weeks. It's the only way the DON could get around me having to reapply for my job.

[jene]

Employees are immediately eligible for 12 weeks of family bonding, unpaid. You also have the option to stack it on top of your STD, so moms can take 18 weeks total.

[imimahoney]

I am a public school teacher and we have no true maternity pay.

No matter how long you've been employed, you may use your banked sick days (up to 8 weeks) to cover the cost of your time off. Any other time is unpaid. Our jobs are protected for a year.

A new employee would have 15 days banked so if they went into leave taking no days then she would be paid for 3 weeks of work.

[preppy]

12 weeks fully paid after 1 year of service.

[Deleted]

STD immediately and FMLA at one year. So before a year they could take 6 or 8 weeks STD depending on type of birth and any accrued vacation.