Working while on maternity leave

theabbey5

I am one week into maternity leave and have been hd fling texts and calls from my boss and person covering me every other day.  Each week I will be putting in PTO time to cover insurance etc and can also put in any working from home time  which I plan to work a little as I get closer to six weeks before going back to work at eight weeks.   Would you constitute the calls and texts as working and submit a couple hours for this?

shannm

Depends on how much time it takes from your day. I dealt with emails throughout leave. If it just required me to type short response, I didn't count it. When it required me to spend almost an entire day doing someone elses job or a signficant amount of proofreading protocols, I counted it and subtracted it from the total PTO days I took. I should add that I was very transparent about it and told my boss and manager that this is how I would do it in advance.

giggles0918

I didn't think that you were able to work while on leave (unless your company doesn't qualify for FMLA which is a different story).  I would absolutely charge the time for calls and texts. 

jeffsjayme

Yup.  Absolutely...if the time was significant/measurable.  If it was 15 minutes/week, it isn't worth worrying about.  But if it means you can save PTO for later, I'd do it (actually, I am doing it).  But when I was on STD, I didn't worry about it - the insurance company was paying and they'd only pay so many weeks in a row regardless of whether I worked or not.  Now that I've transitioned to PTO, I'm putting in my working hours.

fairy_diva

I would count anything that required more than 15 minutes of my time.  And subtract that from my submitted PTO time.  As for the FMLA, you can use your 12 weeks any way you want.  12 weeks at once; 1 week at a time; off 6 weeks now then 6 weeks later, as long at you use the entire 12 weeks within 12 months.  At the end of 12 months your FMLA is up for that 12 month span.