A KIT day in maternity leave means a keeping in touch day. These provide employees with up to 10 days during adoption/maternity leave to work in their role without bringing their leave or pay to an end. Even if the individual only works for part of a day, that counts towards their 10 days of KIT.
The purpose of KIT days are to help employees with training, team meetings, or to help ease them back into the weekly working routine. For example, it may prove useful toward the end of maternity leave to take several KIT days for refamiliarisation with a role. Or an employer may want them to be in office to take part in an essential staff training day.
However, it’s important to remember that an employer or employee can’t enforce KIT days. It’s an optional decision an individual member of staff must make. Payment for these days is also at the employer’s discretion, but is typically at the employee’s standard daily rate.
For employers, the process can help stay in touch with employees on leave to help them feel valued for their eventual return to full-time work.