What is Maternity Leave?
Pregnant employees are entitled to an uninterrupted period of 18 weeks of paid maternity leave. Only the first 14 weeks are paid by the employer, and the remaining 4 weeks will be paid by the government through the Social Security Department.
It is important to note that the pregnant employee is expected to take 4 weeks of maternity leave prior to the expected date (also known as due date), and a further 6 weeks immediately following this date. The remaining 8 weeks of leave may be taken before or after these periods, at the decision of the employee.
How do I include the Maternity Leave on Buddy?
Adding Maternity leave is the same as adding any other leave application. When adding the leave, select the dates and as the Leave Type, make sure to choose Maternity.
You can either add the full 18 weeks as one leave application. Alternatively, you may want to separate it into 5 months, (e.g. 1st to 30th April). This might make it easier to cross-check single leave applications with the amount listed in the payslip.
How to calculate the 4 Weeks which will be paid by the government?
During the portion of maternity leave paid by the government, the employee still accumulates leave and Government Bonus. Hence, those 4 weeks should be added as "Maternity Unpaid" in the Leave Application.
However, you would then need to deduct the portion paid by the government from the gross wage (so that the employee is not paid twice). In order to calculate the 4 weeks of unpaid Maternity Leave in payroll, you will need to add an allowance with a negative amount equal to the 4 weeks of the employee's pay.
One can do this in one of two ways:
- A) Add a Cash type Allowance and insert the amount to be deducted
- B) Add an Hourly type Allowance and insert hours (in negative) the amount to be deducted as unpaid. See an example below of how this appears in the payslip:
You can either use the generic Pre-Tax allowance, or create a custom allowance with your preferred name, such as "Unpaid Maternity".
The Last Step before you finalise your employee's payroll is to remove the weeks worked to remove the SSC Contribution. This is done by un-selecting the weeks listed in the weeks worked section, based on the number of weeks on unpaid maternity.