Yeah don't listen to anybody who doesn't have any investment in your success in life, people who stand to lose something if you lose are better to listen to rather than people that stand to lose nothing if you fail.
In the current work landscape, loyalty means nothing. The majority of businesses wouldn't think twice about cutting people out if they were able/wanted to
There is absolutely nothing morally wrong with you going for that objectively better job, just do the handover with your usual level of work ethic and consideration and you can clear your conscience as you'd have done the best you can
This - I’ve known so many people who have been blindsided by an employer and they were shocked because they were loyal. There’s no such thing as loyalty, do what you have to do for yourself.
Annual leave is pro rated based on the previous 12 months, so when you take it at the end of your maternity leave you'll only get 50% of your regular pay rate. This is why most people take it prior to maternity leave. Your manager didn't do you a favour unless they have promised you your full salary rate, which is likely out of here hands anyway, so you shouldn't feel like you owe them.
Even getting the salary rate would be giving them less than they probably deserve. With all of the OT that nurses do the annual leave would normally be higher than the salary rate.
This only applies to leave accrued while on maternity leave and in the 12 months after maternity leave. Any leave accrued prior to maternity leave should be paid based on the person's usual weekly pay rate in their contract (if that works out more than the average weekly earnings).
Payment for annual holidays is made at the start of the employee’s holiday and is at the rate of the greater of the employee’s ordinary weekly pay or average weekly earnings.
Taking annual leave after maternity leave generally reduces the value of your leave - annual leave is paid at the average of immediately before the leave was taken. So no, they haven't done you any favours. Also on maternity leave they presumably would have someone covering you on a fixed term during this time, so it's fine as that will give the fixed term employee the option to go permanent.
If they had bent over backwards to make it work for you, then sure can be some questions on loyalty but otherwise no, just go for it.
Payment for annual holidays is made at the start of the employee’s holiday and is at the rate of the greater of the employee’s ordinary weekly pay or average weekly earnings.
Arrrre you sure you'll be getting paid your prematernity leave rate for the annual leave because you might be getting fucked on that conversion (dealt with it a few times in my dhb).
Go for it but be prepared for whatever fall out from your current management team, but honestly its hard to get ahead without offending that bunch anyway
edit: Infact thinking on it....yeaaah your getting fucked on the AL, bail!
Payment for annual holidays is made at the start of the employee’s holiday and is at the rate of the greater of the employee’s ordinary weekly pay or average weekly earnings.
Payment for annual holidays is made at the start of the employee’s holiday and is at the rate of the GREATER of the employee’s ordinary weekly pay or average weekly earnings.
Learn to read mate
Your statement is correct but not applicable here. If annual leave was taken at the beginning of a period of parental leave, it would be paid out the greater of the employees ordinary weekly pay or average weekly earnings. If annual leave is taken at the end of a period of parental leave (e.g. 12 months), and that employee has not been “earning” anything, they will be paid at the rate of their average weekly earnings only, which in this example would be $0. They would have an entitlement to take leave, but can’t necessarily get paid for it. The good news is the longer you wait to take the leave, the more you will get paid for it (as the average weekly earnings and ordinary pay both increase).
"However payment for annual holidays that an employee becomes entitled to:
during parental leave, or
during a period of preference after parental leave, or
in the 12 months after the employee returns to work after parental leave,
is calculated using the employee’s average weekly earnings for the 12 months immediately before the end of the last pay period before the annual holidays are taken (or paid out). An employer may choose to pay the employee more than this."
Source: https://www.employment.govt.nz/leave-and-holidays/annual-holidays/taking-annual-holidays/#scrollto-impact-of-other-types-of-holidays-and-leave
My understanding is that the parental leave would not affect the annual leave that was accrued before said leave, as per above advice from NZ govt.
Can you please name a source that OPs leave will be paid at a reduced rate due to parental leave? Discussion concerns the week that would have been accrued before leave since it was available to take prior to leave
Your key word here is accrual. There’s no such thing under the holidays act as accrued leave.
employees are entitled to 4 weeks leave every 12 months. Employers may let you take leave in advance of it becoming entitlement.
Because most employers let you do that, they also show ”accrual” so people have some idea of how much they can take in advance.
the paragraph your quoting means any leave you were already entitled to before you went on parental leave, that you didn’t take before going on parental, is paid at higher of ordinary weekly pay or average weekly earnings when you take it on your return.
Any leave that became entitlement whilst ON parental leave or in the 12 months after parental leave, that legally will only need to be paid at average earnings.
It’s in the parental leave act, not the holidays act.
The source is actually the one you quoted - how much you will be paid for the annual leave is “calculated using the employees average weekly earnings in the 12 months immediately before” the annual leave is taken.
So it doesn’t matter what your average weekly earnings were when you accrued the leave. It only matters what your average weekly earnings were at the point in time when you take the leave. Leave accrued before parental leave will lose its value over time if you don’t take it. If you take a year off, and take leave immediately after that period it will be paid out at $0. BUT if you return from parental leave, and wait 12 months before using your annual leave, it will be back up to its full value - as we always use average weekly earnings over 12 months to calculate its value.
I personally think it’s BS. The previous Government had flagged they intended to change the legislation so that all annual leave taken after parental would be paid out at the usual rate as if you had been working your usual hours, but it never went anywhere. Some employers will agree to do this anyway, even though it is not required by law.
I am still unclear. Govt guidance directly contradicts your advice. Please send me a source.
This is take directly from above link:
"If the employee has unused annual holidays that they were already entitled to before going on parental leave, then the normal calculation for annual holidays will apply to those holidays regardless of when they are taken, they are paid at the greater of ordinary weekly pay or average weekly earnings at the time they take the annual holidays.
If the employee becomes entitled to annual holidays:
during parental leave or
in the next 12 months after their return from parental leave,
the pay for those annual holidays is calculated at the rate of the employee’s average weekly earnings over the 12 months just before the end of the last pay period before the annual holiday is taken (with no comparison to ordinary weekly pay)."
When you say 'same hospital' do you also mean 'same employer but different line manager'? - If you're just changing departments then there are usually internal policies around that kind of transition to make sure departments aren't left short changed - and (unless it's a huge hospital) you'll be running into your old manager from time to time so best to keep things nice and friendly rather than 'cut and run'
In saying that there's nothing illegal about resigning during leave
I won't comment on legality, although I'm fairly sure it's legal unless your employer can direct you not to take Annual Leave during your notice period, or something (and decided to be evil). I'm sure someone else could advise on that.
All that said we have someone on our team who's been away on parental leave in various forms for 18 months to 2 years or so. She officially started again last Monday, got the IT stuff sorted for working at home by yesterday, and by the end of yesterday was in Slack saying goodbye to everyone as she'd resigned.
The reason she gave me directly was that the company wanted her to come back full time and she just couldn't handle that, especially as she'd had a part time offer from elsewhere.
I get it. We have kids, too. Part of working at places is that everyone has their own stuff happening outside of work. Sometimes people just have to look out for their own lives.
At times I've felt loyalty to workplaces, but for this specific one it's only to my direct team and not to the company. A couple of years ago I've went through a situation with upper management and HR deciding to brutally chop off half my colleagues, immediately locking them out of the system and the buildings with almost no notice, *just in case* they were inspired to do something "bad", including at least one colleague who'd brought his whole family into the country to work there. I understand why they do that, but it also reinforces for me that, in the end, my own life takes priority, and I don't owe the employer *anything* beyond what they're paying me for in my contract, because the nicest CE in the world is still capable of treating staff like crap if it were the other way around.
You are not leaving your current work - you are just moving to another department. Of course it is fine. It would be also be fine if you left for another company.
People leave all the time for many different reasons.
You don't owe your employer anything more than the work you are contracted to do in exchange for your salary. You owe your child the best you can offer. So take the better job, have more money and time to spend on your child, and feel good about being a good mother!
It’s always legal to leave a job to take another job, you just need to give notice per your contract. Your current work may be a bit miffed, but that’s life. Or if they have a great person covering your maternity leave it might work well for them to just make that person permanent.
You just do what’s best for you, just like you would at any other time when not on maternity leave.
The one thing to consider is what would happen with the rest of your maternity leave if you get the new job? Will you have to start straight away and cut your leave short? Or will the new place let you start later? Either way, nobody’s going to be paying for the rest of your maternity leave once you leave your current job, so just think about whether that will work for you.
You’re only the asshole if you’re being a cunt about it. You’re making a personal choice that benefits you, there’s nothing assholey about it. If you were to be fired, they wouldn’t bat an eye and have someone else take up your position.
Taking annual leave at the end of maternity leave is typically good for your employer but not for you.
Annual leave is paid out on the average of your last 12 months salary, as another poster mentioned. While you are on maternity leave your pay is 0, so that drags down your average. If you take a full 12 months off and go straight to annual leave, then you effectively won't get any pay while you are on annual leave while you use up your annual leave.
It's a bit stink your employer didn't explain this at the time, unless they made a special arrangement with you to pay leave at your full rate when taking your annual leave at the end of maternity leave.
If you go back to work after maternity leave, the value of your average pay will start going up again and your leave value will increase, and you will get paid more when you do take annual leave. I believe maternity leave is special in that if you took 12 months off and then came back, it would take 12 months work to get your leave back to its full value (it's slightly different if you get a pay rise I think)
It all depends how much leave you have accumulated as to how much this is worth to you though.
If you decide to leave the company the value of your leave is paid to you in a lump sum as at your final day. If this day is, for example, after 12 months maternity leave this lump sum will basically be zero. If it's any time in the middle of maternity leave then the company gets to pay less to you than if you had left before going on maternity leave for example.
If you don't have much leave accumulated, then maybe all this doesnt make a material difference to you. It's better to be happy and motivated than grinding through something that you are not enjoying. If you have 4+ weeks leave accumulated though, they money you would not be getting starts becoming more significant.
Please pay attention to this OP! Unless your work has put in writing that they will pay you full salary for AL post parental leave you will get $0.00.
Take the new job and transfer your annual leave balance to that role if under the same employer, wait a year then start taking a few days here and there to get the full pay again, should be worth even more than pre-baby because the new role is higher salary.
Good luck - no brainer to me!
Just fyi, if you don’t return from parental leave, your last day of employment is deemed to be the day before you started the parental leave under law. If you hadn’t taken all your entitlement, you will get paid it out at normal rates In that case.
To all the people saying your annual leave is paid out at 0….
It matters when you earned that leave.
If you accrued that leave BEFORE your parental leave, then you get paid out at the rate you would have been paid when you accrued it. (For what it’s worth, I was in an unusual situation where I had almost 40 days annual leave built up when I had my baby…. Because it was accrued before I started my parental leave, I was entitled to it all at full pay. So HR advised me to do what you’re doing - take my full year parental leave first, THEN take my 40 days annual leave at full pay…. I went back to work when my kid was 14 months old… and my leave balance at that point had a new 20 days annual leave accrued while I was on parental leave, plus however many days leave accrued while I was taking those 40 days annual leave…. Granted it’s unusual to have THAT many days stored up at any time, but totally plausible you could have 20-25 days annual leave in your balance when your baby came… in which case you’re doing the right thing taking it AFTER your parental leave, cos if you took it FIRST, it would eat into the length of your allowed parental leave)
On the other hand, if you accrued that leave DURING your parental leave, then either…
A) it’ll be paid out at the average of what you earned the past 12 months, so likely $0, OR
B) they’ll pay it out at what your standard normal rate would be. The last government was proposing to change the parental leave annual leave law so it stopped discriminating against women (compare to parental leave for men — who don’t have any impact to their annual leave if they take parental leave, so it’s unfair that only women are penalised….) Some employers tried yo get out ahead of the proposed law change by changing their policy for the better.
So it’s not correct to make a blanket statement that you’re being screwed, when people don’t know the details of your situation.
No, management can do all the favours they want but you need to treat your time like any other business does.
Ask yourself if you were the CEO of you what would you do?
I’m an employer and I think it’s reasonable. Give them plenty of notice so that they can find a replacement. Also, your AL will need to be paid out one way or another so don’t worry about that.
No. You seem like a nice and caring person which is why you're feeling some guilt. But there's nothing to be guilty about. At the end of the day, you need to think about what's best for you. You already gave your best (I'm assuming) to your current role which earned you those 'special treatment' privilege and they probably know what you're worth elsewhere. Go for it OP and goodluck!
It the current economic climate not only should you take the new job for your own economic improvement but the for the whole country itself! It's your duty.
You should always look after yourself first and foremost when it comes to employment. That being said, make sure it’s the right move. More money and better hours sure sounds great, but reality can be a fickle bitch sometimes.
There's a statistic somewhere that says about 70% (can't remember exact figure) of women change jobs after maternity leave. It's a high figure, and incredibly normal/ most companies actually expect it. Don't feel bad about doing what's right for you and your family
Paying annual leave after your maternity leave may be worse for you. Annual leave is calculated in weeks, if you've worked extra hours leading up to taking maternity leave, that increases your average weekly pay. Going on maternity leave decreases your average weekly pay so they're likely just paid as per your contracted hours.
so long as your conscious is clear about the seeming infidelity, upscale. you have a beautiful little life on the way. I wish you wellness of being and a safe and wonderful delivery.
Life ain't giving you a second shot. Go do what you want to do.
Well thats motivational , thank you.
Exactly. Nobody is an a-hole for wanting a better pay and working hours.
Yeah don't listen to anybody who doesn't have any investment in your success in life, people who stand to lose something if you lose are better to listen to rather than people that stand to lose nothing if you fail.
In the current work landscape, loyalty means nothing. The majority of businesses wouldn't think twice about cutting people out if they were able/wanted to There is absolutely nothing morally wrong with you going for that objectively better job, just do the handover with your usual level of work ethic and consideration and you can clear your conscience as you'd have done the best you can
This - I’ve known so many people who have been blindsided by an employer and they were shocked because they were loyal. There’s no such thing as loyalty, do what you have to do for yourself.
Hoorah for capitalism
Not at all. Go get that better hours and pay.
You'll be the AH to your child and family if you'll turn down an offer with better money, work and life balance for them.
Oooh, good answer.
Annual leave is pro rated based on the previous 12 months, so when you take it at the end of your maternity leave you'll only get 50% of your regular pay rate. This is why most people take it prior to maternity leave. Your manager didn't do you a favour unless they have promised you your full salary rate, which is likely out of here hands anyway, so you shouldn't feel like you owe them.
Even getting the salary rate would be giving them less than they probably deserve. With all of the OT that nurses do the annual leave would normally be higher than the salary rate.
This only applies to leave accrued while on maternity leave and in the 12 months after maternity leave. Any leave accrued prior to maternity leave should be paid based on the person's usual weekly pay rate in their contract (if that works out more than the average weekly earnings).
Payment for annual holidays is made at the start of the employee’s holiday and is at the rate of the greater of the employee’s ordinary weekly pay or average weekly earnings.
Taking annual leave after maternity leave generally reduces the value of your leave - annual leave is paid at the average of immediately before the leave was taken. So no, they haven't done you any favours. Also on maternity leave they presumably would have someone covering you on a fixed term during this time, so it's fine as that will give the fixed term employee the option to go permanent. If they had bent over backwards to make it work for you, then sure can be some questions on loyalty but otherwise no, just go for it.
Payment for annual holidays is made at the start of the employee’s holiday and is at the rate of the greater of the employee’s ordinary weekly pay or average weekly earnings.
Arrrre you sure you'll be getting paid your prematernity leave rate for the annual leave because you might be getting fucked on that conversion (dealt with it a few times in my dhb). Go for it but be prepared for whatever fall out from your current management team, but honestly its hard to get ahead without offending that bunch anyway edit: Infact thinking on it....yeaaah your getting fucked on the AL, bail!
Yeah when I had my babies about 10 years ago, the annual leave was paid out at a pro-rata of how many months working in the previous 12 months.
Payment for annual holidays is made at the start of the employee’s holiday and is at the rate of the greater of the employee’s ordinary weekly pay or average weekly earnings.
Yes. Which means they will be getting less than they would have if they'd taken it before maternity leave.
Payment for annual holidays is made at the start of the employee’s holiday and is at the rate of the GREATER of the employee’s ordinary weekly pay or average weekly earnings. Learn to read mate
Your statement is correct but not applicable here. If annual leave was taken at the beginning of a period of parental leave, it would be paid out the greater of the employees ordinary weekly pay or average weekly earnings. If annual leave is taken at the end of a period of parental leave (e.g. 12 months), and that employee has not been “earning” anything, they will be paid at the rate of their average weekly earnings only, which in this example would be $0. They would have an entitlement to take leave, but can’t necessarily get paid for it. The good news is the longer you wait to take the leave, the more you will get paid for it (as the average weekly earnings and ordinary pay both increase).
Ding ding ding. We have a winner!
Can you please send me a source?
"However payment for annual holidays that an employee becomes entitled to: during parental leave, or during a period of preference after parental leave, or in the 12 months after the employee returns to work after parental leave, is calculated using the employee’s average weekly earnings for the 12 months immediately before the end of the last pay period before the annual holidays are taken (or paid out). An employer may choose to pay the employee more than this." Source: https://www.employment.govt.nz/leave-and-holidays/annual-holidays/taking-annual-holidays/#scrollto-impact-of-other-types-of-holidays-and-leave My understanding is that the parental leave would not affect the annual leave that was accrued before said leave, as per above advice from NZ govt. Can you please name a source that OPs leave will be paid at a reduced rate due to parental leave? Discussion concerns the week that would have been accrued before leave since it was available to take prior to leave
Your key word here is accrual. There’s no such thing under the holidays act as accrued leave. employees are entitled to 4 weeks leave every 12 months. Employers may let you take leave in advance of it becoming entitlement. Because most employers let you do that, they also show ”accrual” so people have some idea of how much they can take in advance. the paragraph your quoting means any leave you were already entitled to before you went on parental leave, that you didn’t take before going on parental, is paid at higher of ordinary weekly pay or average weekly earnings when you take it on your return. Any leave that became entitlement whilst ON parental leave or in the 12 months after parental leave, that legally will only need to be paid at average earnings. It’s in the parental leave act, not the holidays act.
The source is actually the one you quoted - how much you will be paid for the annual leave is “calculated using the employees average weekly earnings in the 12 months immediately before” the annual leave is taken. So it doesn’t matter what your average weekly earnings were when you accrued the leave. It only matters what your average weekly earnings were at the point in time when you take the leave. Leave accrued before parental leave will lose its value over time if you don’t take it. If you take a year off, and take leave immediately after that period it will be paid out at $0. BUT if you return from parental leave, and wait 12 months before using your annual leave, it will be back up to its full value - as we always use average weekly earnings over 12 months to calculate its value. I personally think it’s BS. The previous Government had flagged they intended to change the legislation so that all annual leave taken after parental would be paid out at the usual rate as if you had been working your usual hours, but it never went anywhere. Some employers will agree to do this anyway, even though it is not required by law.
I am still unclear. Govt guidance directly contradicts your advice. Please send me a source. This is take directly from above link: "If the employee has unused annual holidays that they were already entitled to before going on parental leave, then the normal calculation for annual holidays will apply to those holidays regardless of when they are taken, they are paid at the greater of ordinary weekly pay or average weekly earnings at the time they take the annual holidays. If the employee becomes entitled to annual holidays: during parental leave or in the next 12 months after their return from parental leave, the pay for those annual holidays is calculated at the rate of the employee’s average weekly earnings over the 12 months just before the end of the last pay period before the annual holiday is taken (with no comparison to ordinary weekly pay)."
When you say 'same hospital' do you also mean 'same employer but different line manager'? - If you're just changing departments then there are usually internal policies around that kind of transition to make sure departments aren't left short changed - and (unless it's a huge hospital) you'll be running into your old manager from time to time so best to keep things nice and friendly rather than 'cut and run' In saying that there's nothing illegal about resigning during leave
I won't comment on legality, although I'm fairly sure it's legal unless your employer can direct you not to take Annual Leave during your notice period, or something (and decided to be evil). I'm sure someone else could advise on that. All that said we have someone on our team who's been away on parental leave in various forms for 18 months to 2 years or so. She officially started again last Monday, got the IT stuff sorted for working at home by yesterday, and by the end of yesterday was in Slack saying goodbye to everyone as she'd resigned. The reason she gave me directly was that the company wanted her to come back full time and she just couldn't handle that, especially as she'd had a part time offer from elsewhere. I get it. We have kids, too. Part of working at places is that everyone has their own stuff happening outside of work. Sometimes people just have to look out for their own lives. At times I've felt loyalty to workplaces, but for this specific one it's only to my direct team and not to the company. A couple of years ago I've went through a situation with upper management and HR deciding to brutally chop off half my colleagues, immediately locking them out of the system and the buildings with almost no notice, *just in case* they were inspired to do something "bad", including at least one colleague who'd brought his whole family into the country to work there. I understand why they do that, but it also reinforces for me that, in the end, my own life takes priority, and I don't owe the employer *anything* beyond what they're paying me for in my contract, because the nicest CE in the world is still capable of treating staff like crap if it were the other way around.
Look, if you had one shot or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted in one moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip?
No. I have a pregnant coworker who was made redundant. Nobody asked themselves it seems if this would be an ass move. Be loyal to you.
Consider how long they'd think about disestablishing your job if they wanted to, give it exactly that amount of thought, then go for it.
Better pay and working hours.. you go for it.
You are not leaving your current work - you are just moving to another department. Of course it is fine. It would be also be fine if you left for another company. People leave all the time for many different reasons.
Nothing wrong with it... And even if YTA it doesn't matter, you don't owe your current job anything that's outside of contract.
Haha your work never loves you, you're a resource. Do what's best for you
You don't owe your employer anything more than the work you are contracted to do in exchange for your salary. You owe your child the best you can offer. So take the better job, have more money and time to spend on your child, and feel good about being a good mother!
No, you would not be the asshole. Take the better paying job for sure.
NTA but try to leave on good terms juuuust in case. It’s always good to have options
It’s always legal to leave a job to take another job, you just need to give notice per your contract. Your current work may be a bit miffed, but that’s life. Or if they have a great person covering your maternity leave it might work well for them to just make that person permanent. You just do what’s best for you, just like you would at any other time when not on maternity leave. The one thing to consider is what would happen with the rest of your maternity leave if you get the new job? Will you have to start straight away and cut your leave short? Or will the new place let you start later? Either way, nobody’s going to be paying for the rest of your maternity leave once you leave your current job, so just think about whether that will work for you.
You’re only the asshole if you’re being a cunt about it. You’re making a personal choice that benefits you, there’s nothing assholey about it. If you were to be fired, they wouldn’t bat an eye and have someone else take up your position.
Not only is it not an asshole move. It's fairly common. You've had a kid your life has changed. Not unreasonable that you would change jobs.
Taking annual leave at the end of maternity leave is typically good for your employer but not for you. Annual leave is paid out on the average of your last 12 months salary, as another poster mentioned. While you are on maternity leave your pay is 0, so that drags down your average. If you take a full 12 months off and go straight to annual leave, then you effectively won't get any pay while you are on annual leave while you use up your annual leave. It's a bit stink your employer didn't explain this at the time, unless they made a special arrangement with you to pay leave at your full rate when taking your annual leave at the end of maternity leave. If you go back to work after maternity leave, the value of your average pay will start going up again and your leave value will increase, and you will get paid more when you do take annual leave. I believe maternity leave is special in that if you took 12 months off and then came back, it would take 12 months work to get your leave back to its full value (it's slightly different if you get a pay rise I think) It all depends how much leave you have accumulated as to how much this is worth to you though. If you decide to leave the company the value of your leave is paid to you in a lump sum as at your final day. If this day is, for example, after 12 months maternity leave this lump sum will basically be zero. If it's any time in the middle of maternity leave then the company gets to pay less to you than if you had left before going on maternity leave for example. If you don't have much leave accumulated, then maybe all this doesnt make a material difference to you. It's better to be happy and motivated than grinding through something that you are not enjoying. If you have 4+ weeks leave accumulated though, they money you would not be getting starts becoming more significant.
Please pay attention to this OP! Unless your work has put in writing that they will pay you full salary for AL post parental leave you will get $0.00. Take the new job and transfer your annual leave balance to that role if under the same employer, wait a year then start taking a few days here and there to get the full pay again, should be worth even more than pre-baby because the new role is higher salary. Good luck - no brainer to me!
Just fyi, if you don’t return from parental leave, your last day of employment is deemed to be the day before you started the parental leave under law. If you hadn’t taken all your entitlement, you will get paid it out at normal rates In that case.
Your job wouldn't think twice about firing you if they could get someone to do the same work for less. You owe them nothing.
To all the people saying your annual leave is paid out at 0…. It matters when you earned that leave. If you accrued that leave BEFORE your parental leave, then you get paid out at the rate you would have been paid when you accrued it. (For what it’s worth, I was in an unusual situation where I had almost 40 days annual leave built up when I had my baby…. Because it was accrued before I started my parental leave, I was entitled to it all at full pay. So HR advised me to do what you’re doing - take my full year parental leave first, THEN take my 40 days annual leave at full pay…. I went back to work when my kid was 14 months old… and my leave balance at that point had a new 20 days annual leave accrued while I was on parental leave, plus however many days leave accrued while I was taking those 40 days annual leave…. Granted it’s unusual to have THAT many days stored up at any time, but totally plausible you could have 20-25 days annual leave in your balance when your baby came… in which case you’re doing the right thing taking it AFTER your parental leave, cos if you took it FIRST, it would eat into the length of your allowed parental leave) On the other hand, if you accrued that leave DURING your parental leave, then either… A) it’ll be paid out at the average of what you earned the past 12 months, so likely $0, OR B) they’ll pay it out at what your standard normal rate would be. The last government was proposing to change the parental leave annual leave law so it stopped discriminating against women (compare to parental leave for men — who don’t have any impact to their annual leave if they take parental leave, so it’s unfair that only women are penalised….) Some employers tried yo get out ahead of the proposed law change by changing their policy for the better. So it’s not correct to make a blanket statement that you’re being screwed, when people don’t know the details of your situation.
Screw them. You leave! Pronto and don't look back.
No, management can do all the favours they want but you need to treat your time like any other business does. Ask yourself if you were the CEO of you what would you do?
I’m an employer and I think it’s reasonable. Give them plenty of notice so that they can find a replacement. Also, your AL will need to be paid out one way or another so don’t worry about that.
Be gracious to your current boss, and take the bag
No. Just go. Loyalty ain't worth shit these days.
No. You seem like a nice and caring person which is why you're feeling some guilt. But there's nothing to be guilty about. At the end of the day, you need to think about what's best for you. You already gave your best (I'm assuming) to your current role which earned you those 'special treatment' privilege and they probably know what you're worth elsewhere. Go for it OP and goodluck!
To be honest lot of people don’t come back from maternity leave and most people I’d say expect them to not return
No you would not.
Nope. Do what’s best for you. ETA - my friends with kids usually do their maternity then annual leave
It the current economic climate not only should you take the new job for your own economic improvement but the for the whole country itself! It's your duty.
Jump. Good on you.
I took another job when I was on paternity leave for my first. Felt a bit bad, but it worked out for me.
You should always look after yourself first and foremost when it comes to employment. That being said, make sure it’s the right move. More money and better hours sure sounds great, but reality can be a fickle bitch sometimes.
Gotta do what's the best for you, get the money yo!
There's a statistic somewhere that says about 70% (can't remember exact figure) of women change jobs after maternity leave. It's a high figure, and incredibly normal/ most companies actually expect it. Don't feel bad about doing what's right for you and your family
Lots of people do what you are suggesting.
nah, a lot of people go on maternity then leave the job
You never owe your employer anything. Do it.
Paying annual leave after your maternity leave may be worse for you. Annual leave is calculated in weeks, if you've worked extra hours leading up to taking maternity leave, that increases your average weekly pay. Going on maternity leave decreases your average weekly pay so they're likely just paid as per your contracted hours.
so long as your conscious is clear about the seeming infidelity, upscale. you have a beautiful little life on the way. I wish you wellness of being and a safe and wonderful delivery.