What are my rights when I go back to work after family leave?

Most return-to-work problems are not legal problems; they are planning problems that become legal problems. The two things that cause them are not giving the eight weeks' notice to return early, and not having a conversation about hours until the week before. Both are entirely avoidable and both are much harder to fix once the date has arrived.

Step by step

1. Check the date your employer confirmed.Within 28 days of you giving notice of your leave, the employer should have written confirming the date the leave ends. You are assumed to be returning on that date and no further notice is needed to return then.
2. Give eight weeks' notice to return early.If you want to come back sooner, give at least eight weeks' notice. Without it the employer can postpone your return until they have had their eight weeks, which is rarely what anybody wants.
3. Know which right to return you have.After ordinary maternity leave — 26 weeks or less — you return to the same job. After additional maternity leave, or a combination totalling more than 26 weeks, you return to the same job unless it is not reasonably practicable, in which case a suitable and appropriate alternative on terms no less favourable.
4. Check your terms have continued.Seniority, pension rights and length of service are treated as if you had not been away, and terms and conditions must be no less favourable. Check your pay, grade, benefits and holiday allowance against your pre-leave position.
5. Plan the accrued holiday.Holiday continues to accrue throughout family leave. It commonly amounts to several weeks, and taking it immediately after the leave — extending the time at home — is the normal arrangement. Ask early, because it needs approving like any leave.
6. Raise hours before you return, not after.If you want different hours or a different pattern, make a statutory flexible working request in good time. It is a day-one right, the employer has two months to decide including any appeal, and refusing a request made by a new mother can raise discrimination questions as well.
7. Ask for a return-to-work conversation.Changes to the team, the systems, the role and the priorities all happened while you were away. A structured conversation before the first day, plus training on anything new, is normal and worth asking for explicitly.
8. Know your rights if you are breastfeeding.Tell your employer in writing. They must carry out a risk assessment and consider adjustments, and are expected to provide somewhere suitable to rest. A toilet is not a suitable place to express milk.
9. Consider not returning, and what that costs.You can resign at the end of maternity leave with your normal contractual notice. Statutory Maternity Pay never has to be repaid. Contractual enhanced pay often does have a repayment clause — read it before deciding.

Tips

• Ask for your accrued holiday balance in writing three months before you return. It is often more than you expect and it changes the plan.
• Make the flexible working request at least three months ahead. The statutory clock is two months and you want the answer before you return.
• Ask for a handover and any training on new systems before the first day back. It is normal, it is cheap for the employer, and it makes the return far easier.

Common mistakes

• Not giving eight weeks' notice to return early — The employer can lawfully postpone your return until they have had their eight weeks, which can leave you unpaid for weeks you had planned to be working.
• Leaving the flexible working conversation until the last month — The employer has two months to decide including an appeal. A request made four weeks before the return date cannot be resolved before you are back.

If it doesn't work

Questions people ask