My maternity leave will cover most of the next appraisal cycle. How did your company rate you?

I've had four people on my teams go on maternity leave, across a couple of companies. What worked best was writing down, before the leave started, what the person had delivered that year and what the calibration should consider. Calibration happens months later and memories are short. I'd raise it when you tell your manager, not later. Not as a demand, just 'how will my rating work this cycle'. If they don't know, it gives them time to find out from HR.

Ask HR for the policy in writing before you discuss plans with your manager. Hospitals are different, but the year my daughter was born I got 'not rated', which sounded neutral and turned out to mean no increment either. Nobody explained that until the letter came. Find out what 'not rated' or 'pro-rated' means for pay in your company. That's the part that matters ❤️

In the two companies I've managed in, the rating and the increment were handled separately. The rating could be pro-rated on months worked. The increment was the one that quietly slipped. Ask about both, separately. Also worth knowing who sits in calibration besides your manager. If your skip-level knows your work first-hand, that helps more than any document.

From a small practice: we don't have curves, just two partners deciding increments. When one of our architects went on leave we kept her increment as it would have been and paid the difference when she came back. Bigger companies have more rules but also more people who can bend them. Wait till you know the policy before assuming the worst 🤷