To think maternity leave should be capped at 6 months to protect small businesses?

Yes, you are being incredibly unreasonable.

I can only assume (by the fact you put the needs of a small business you don’t even own above those of a tiny human dependant on its mum and those of that mum who is already most likely struggling on what garbage our maternity pay is and the short amount of time she is given to raise and bond with that tiny baby) that you don’t have children. What you’re suggesting doesn’t ‘make things fairer for all’, it makes a difficult time more difficult for a new mum while making things better for the employer.

I like my job and am currently 6 months into maternity and can’t imagine EVER putting that job above my baby. What you’re suggesting is putting the needs of the business first. Absolutely not.

But OP what are you calling for?

You seem to be suggesting that mothers should “share the burden”? What do you actually mean? Work part time?

Perhaps you shouldn't employ anyone with that attitude.

How do you know they aren't going to get cancer or have mental health issues which lead to them going off with stress?

Given your inability to adapt to other people having the audacity to not be a slave to your company I'm not sure your business is particularly viable in the first place.

Frankly, there are already more than enough reasons for women not to have children - the cost of housing and childcare, the hit to their career plans, the difficulties that come with juggling the competing demands of work and family, dire maternity care, plus the complete uselessness of so many men - that if you add too many more disadvantages into the mix, the birth rate will plummet even lower than it already has to the eventual detriment of all businesses. You are being very unreasonable - and I speak as someone who ran her own small business for nearly 30 years!

If you want systems to work better for small businesses OP, why have you proposed something that will act as an incentive for all their best employees to piss off elsewhere as soon as they become sufficiently attractive to get more rights?

Small businesses should take a leaf out of big business book for this sort of thing.

Handbooks explaining how to cover a person's role.

Defined and structured job roles - not simply oh that's one of 'Anna's areas'. Don't have 'Anna' and 'Sue' have 'an administrative manager' and a 'HR assistant' etc. Make the roles clear, and don't let a person's work ever only their business.

Hire temps for a full year, utilise job sharing, hybrid working, flexi-time, TOIL etc etc.

Yes, maternity leave can be difficult for companies, but larger companies don't let it destroy them. It's not about the size of the business the woman works in either. Think of, for example, a small roadside Greggs. Unlikely to employ more than 10 people. If one full time worker went on maternity 10% (likely more given some will be part time) of their staff has gone! And yet I guarantee it doesn't throw them into hell.

Have a succession plan with all your employees - identity the best ones to be able to step up - even if only for a year. If a bottom rung employee leaves for maternity, hire another, temp or permanent, and look to grow.

If an employee having maternity leave causes a problem, that problem lies with the business, and their solutions should be in place before anyone so much as announces a pregnancy.

So where are these babies meant to go? Research shows that children do best with a primary care giver for their first three years of life. Does a team having to manage absence for six months trump the mental well being of both mother and child?

I know it's a lighthearted comment, but for many small business owners this is still unfortunately a big issue. Not that they're allowed to admit it out loud as that's, you know, sexual discrimination!

I am an employer who has a number of female staff of child bearing age who could announce a pregnancy at any time. I can't say the thought didn't cross my mind when I first took them on (though ultimately still took them on, along with that risk!).

I don't think, however, that maternity leave should be capped at 6 months. Family comes first, no matter what. It's a burden employers of any size have to carry. I agree with a PP that it would be easier to find a 12 month cover for mat leave than 6. You'd get better work out of them over a longer period, the more familiar they become.

In addition to the points already made about recovery and feeding, returning to work early would, for many, mean paying for the baby to be in nursery for an additional 6 months.

If you are saying that the way to help small businesses is to scrap the repayment scheme mentioned by other posters, and instead cut maternity leave, you are essentially arguing that individual mothers should bare the cost of subsidising small businesses.

My work put NO plans in place to cover my role or my work when I went off, instead I essentially had to do my actual job and plan and schedule for the year before I went off. Can't help but feel that if they now struggle it's totally on them. I put in the hours to make sure everything was in place before I left, but if something unexpected arises I will not be helping. I imagine a lot of women who work for SMEs are treated similarly.

I think it’s worth thinking longer term. Women who are treated well during maternity and especially if offered some flexibility on return have huge stickability. So you may have a short term disruption but in the long run there may be more continuity for the business.

So what do you want if you don’t want to force mothers back at 6 months?

This.

I work for and co-own a small business and my maternity leave cost the company a total of £300 over the 9 months I took - this was purely the excess employers NI they had to pay (this was 2012). Every other penny was covered by the government.

I think what might help more would be encouraging fathers to take a portion of parental leave. Or offering more paid KIT type days (on top of govt funded maternity pay) to assist businesses.

whether there’s a way to better support everyone involved - including parents who want longer leave and the businesses trying to stay afloat in their absence.
One way would be to run a better business. HTH.

It's a suspiciously glaring blind spot, isn't it? OP talks of wanting a wider discussion, but ignoring the issues of recruitment and of losing qualified staff once they're trained up doesn't suggest the desire is genuine.

This. Small businesses wanting 6mths just want to take the piss and avoid hiring mat cover at all and want to try and get other staff to cover it because it's 'just a few months'. Maternity cover isn't there for the benefit of the company it's there to protect the jobs of new mums while they care for newborn babies. Yabu

So in your mind, the welfare of a business takes precedence over the wellbeing of both baby and mother?

I actually agree with you OP.

I don't think it's for women to worry about. They need to heal and adjust.

It is for society to wake up and value the contribution of having babies (to pay your pension and care for you in old age). And to then reflect that.

If women's labour was actually valued this wouldnt be a question.

Overall women are more likely to cost less and be more loyal to an employer. This isn't just about how much they are paid per hour, it means they cost less to hire and train. And we should be talking about the loss of skills in the workplace from not supporting mothers properly in the workplace more rather than having this weird focus on how women aren't as good as men somehow.

It's bollocks. Women bring other things to the workplace and in economic terms it's not as straightforward as just looking at 'how much maternity leave costs' (which as demonstrated on this thread is actually bollocks anyway).

Change the conversation to accurately reflect reality. All reality. That doesn't make women invisible or deemed a nuisance from the word go without a proper unbiased and non sexist attitude.

You have to think about the wider picture of how we want society to be, not just the picture of your business.
Are babies better staying with their breastfeeding mothers for longer, are mothers better to have the option to recover for longer, do we want to force women to hand their children off to nurseries to go back to their jobs stressed and tired if they are not ready. A few poeple do go back early but for many it would force them to exit their jobs if maternity was cut short.
What is best for society and how should we manage it collectively should be the question. Then go from there. If small business suffer then there should be subsidy for small business supporting mat leave and training for cover staff, not cut mat leaves short.

Are you a man?
Or a misogynist woman?

Can you explain why anyone should care about someone's small business?

And you idea says the second six months should be shared parental - now you’ve just doubled the number of people who are taking 6 months off to disrupt the business while at the same time making it harder to cover because it’s too short a contract length.

Very true!

Speaking as someone who has moved job to do a maternity leave cover, I'd not have bothered for 6 months. It wouldn't have been worth giving up the stability of my existing role. In most sectors, it's harder to recruit for fixed term contracts of less than a year.

It would be far more difficult to hire for a 6 month role than it would be to hire for a 12 month one. If you don’t understand that, then I don’t believe this is a genuine post. Anyone who has any involvement in hiring staff or running a team would understand it.