Maternity Leave Policy- What's yours?

[Anonymous]

Large DC university.

STD is elective only (employee paid) at 66% after 4 weeks for 2-4 wks for people w/ 0-2 yrs
STD is employer-paid at 50% after two weeks for 4-6 wks for people with 2-4 yrs, and paid at 100% for people with more than 4 yrs of service

You can use sick or annual leave for before STD, after, etc. You can choose to use all or no accrued leave. Our annual leave doesn't carry over, though, so you won't have a lot to use, normally.

16 weeks for FMLA (unpaid unless you qualify for STD and/or use your leave).

[Anonymous]

Large nonprofit in Alexandria, approximately 200 employees.

6/8 weeks of STD @ 60% of pay (vaginal vs ceasarean) and 12 weeks of FMLA, unpaid of course. The STD & FMLA run simultaneously, so you can take a total of 12 weeks. You can use PTO time if you like during FMLA for some income. I think you have to use at least 20 hours PTO a week during FMLA to keep accruing PTO days. Our company also lets employees donate PTO to other employees.

I was lucky in that I had a ton of PTO built up and I had a few colleagues donate whole weeks of PTO to me (it pays to be nice!).

My organization is very progressive and I have to admit, I'm surprised that they don't offer paid maternity leave. We're at the forefront of most other work-related programs. But, I realize that I am lucky to have what we have and I won't complain.

[Anonymous]

<50 national nonprofit in DC.
STD pays 5 weeks at 60% (after 5 sick days).
Runs concurrently with DCFMLA (16 weeks unpaid).
Can use accrued vacation/sick during FMLA. (We accrue 12 days sick/15 days vacation per year.)

DCFMLA is actually 16 week medical PLUS 16 weeks family


Meaning the initial 5d sick and 5w STD should count as medical and THEN there would be 16w family after that? Interesting. That's not how the lawyer our HR person consulted interpreted the law.


That's correct, the STD would count against the medical portion of FMLA, and then you would have an additional 16 weeks of family FMLA after that. I will admit that our HR did not explain it correctly to me either. They made it sound like it was a total of 16 weeks medical + family, not 16 weeks each in a 24 month period. The family leave can be used any time during the first year after you give birth/adopt.

This is not how it was explained by our HR people. I was told that the medical and family ARE separate, but the medical portion is for complications prior to delivery, bedrest, etc. The family leave covers everything after delivery, including the 6-8 weeks of medical recovery. You may want to check.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Large DC university.

STD is elective only (employee paid) at 66% after 4 weeks for 2-4 wks for people w/ 0-2 yrs
STD is employer-paid at 50% after two weeks for 4-6 wks for people with 2-4 yrs, and paid at 100% for people with more than 4 yrs of service

You can use sick or annual leave for before STD, after, etc. You can choose to use all or no accrued leave. Our annual leave doesn't carry over, though, so you won't have a lot to use, normally.

16 weeks for FMLA (unpaid unless you qualify for STD and/or use your leave).

Lol, I think I know exactly which university you're referring to...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

<50 national nonprofit in DC.
STD pays 5 weeks at 60% (after 5 sick days).
Runs concurrently with DCFMLA (16 weeks unpaid).
Can use accrued vacation/sick during FMLA. (We accrue 12 days sick/15 days vacation per year.)

DCFMLA is actually 16 week medical PLUS 16 weeks family


Meaning the initial 5d sick and 5w STD should count as medical and THEN there would be 16w family after that? Interesting. That's not how the lawyer our HR person consulted interpreted the law.


That's correct, the STD would count against the medical portion of FMLA, and then you would have an additional 16 weeks of family FMLA after that. I will admit that our HR did not explain it correctly to me either. They made it sound like it was a total of 16 weeks medical + family, not 16 weeks each in a 24 month period. The family leave can be used any time during the first year after you give birth/adopt.

This is not how it was explained by our HR people. I was told that the medical and family ARE separate, but the medical portion is for complications prior to delivery, bedrest, etc. The family leave covers everything after delivery, including the 6-8 weeks of medical recovery. You may want to check.

I used the medical portion post-delivery for 6 weeks (what my doc put on the form). Medical is not just for complications prior to delivery.

[Anonymous]

Very large international telecom/internet provider..

A couple years ago they flipped the whole STD/LTD thing around.. so now:

They cover STD at no cost to you, you pay extra for LTD.
STD kicks in after 5 days out, retroactively.
I think everyone gets up to 6 weeks of fully paid STD, then you get fully covered STD for 2 weeks for every year of service up to 18 weeks until you are medically cleared to return to work. If you are medically cleared before 12 weeks FMLA is up, than you can stay out up to the end of the 12 weeks. You can choose to use sick or vacation time during that period so that you get $$ - you can opt to have the remaining time unpaid.


Example:
You have worked at the company for 2 years. Your first day out is the day you have the baby. After 5 days, STD kicks in. Your first 6 weeks are paid 100% with STD. If you have a vag birth and are medically cleared to go back to work, you can stay home another 6 weeks unpaid. Which brings you up to the 12 permitted by FMLA. If you had a c-section and get medically cleared after 8 weeks, the first 6 are paid 100%, the 2 weeks that you are still medically out - I think you don't get paid, because you haven't been there long enough.. there is a gap before LTD pays out. And you could take another 4 weeks unpaid to use up the FMLA time.

My crazy example:
I had a crazy dramatic nearly killed me kind of birth and was in the hospital and sick for a long time afterward. I was out 14 weeks before I was medically cleared to go back to work. I had worked for the company for 10 years, so I was eligible for fully paid up till 18 weeks. My entire 14 weeks were fully paid time out. Which sounds great, but I was still very weak when I went back to work and had a really hard time. I spent most of my maternity leave trying to recover rather than bonding with my baby and learning to take care of her. My boss did work with me to let me work from home more. Because I was passed the 12 weeks permitted by FMLA I wasn't eligible to take additional time of unpaid leave.

What *really* sucked was what happened with my husband. We work for the same company. Technically, the rules say that we are supposed to *share* FMLA time for the birth of a baby. If everything had gone normally - and I wanted the full FMLA 12 weeks, he wouldn't have gotten anytime off other than vacation time. We would have been better of if we were unmarried! My husband's team is all guys, and when they had children they were only out for 2 or 3 days. I think his boss was expecting the same of my husband, despite my husband telling him repeatedly he wanted to take more time. We had been preparing to fight the policy.. What ended up happening - his boss just sort of let him be off as needed. Of course no one was expecting me to get so sick, so it dragged on quite a while.

I would like to understand better, what happens for folks who go on leave *before* the baby is born? Does their FMLA start then? Do most places require you to take FMLA concurrently with STD?

[Anonymous]

I feel very lucky. Living in the DC area only temporarily, I come from a small Nordic country in Europe. We get up to 3 years off from work (which very few use unless they have several babies in row) and during this time usually the company should keep your job. During the first 18 months, if you have worked before, the government continues paying your salary up to a certain limit (the limit is quite high, I am a teacher, so my salary is way above the limit actually), so for 18 months, not much to worry about. There are very few women who go back to work at 6 months, the usual is at least a year, or 1,5 years before returning to work. And to clarify, we have liberal market economy and we are not a socialist country, but we do have public healthcare, so if you work, you are insured

[Anonymous]

Small non profit with 4 employees. No maternity policy. I was the first employee to get pregnant. They gave me a three month unpaid leave - and I had to pay my entire health insurance premium while out. I was able to bank about 3 weeks of vacation. Other than the 3 weeks, nothing was paid. I saved up two months of salary in advance and banked it to get us through the leave. Not ideal, but I had been there a long time and loved my job.