AIBU to feel resentful about repeated maternity leave cover at work

Why have you come on a website specifically for mums, to slate mums & expect people to agree with you.

Strange. Maybe go to Reddit for sympathy

boohoo x no development at work

This is my experience of the NHS staff management too. And surprise surprise the patient care suffers, morale drops, staff sickness increases and people leave for other less stressful jobs.
It’s not really about Mat Leave as every kind of leave is treated similarly, sickness, training, compassionate etc.
Ive found that people in a caring profession tend to want to have families to care for also, it seems to go hand in hand a lot of the time.

Take it up with management. If you can't do your work safely and essential development is on hold because of the level of covering for others, then you have the duty to report this.

I say this as someone who used to work in a department with an insane amount of sickness absence and subsequently covering for these absences.

You need to speak up, they have a duty of care towards you and their clients. Or vote with your feet.
Bu don't let your frustration out on your fellow women who have done nothing wrong.

YANBU, OP @Kedgey55

at the point when women are employed they should be made to sign a contract stating that they will take the contraceptive pill until they retire. Otherwise it’s just not fair on everyone else around them.

🙄

Yes it does - it means they aren't having to recruit for that role/cover that role too.

I can kinda see where the OP is coming from.

Myself, am NHS staff and had 2 very well paid maternity leaves and then was able to come back part time, I could not have been more looked after.

I later became a manager and however delighted I am for them when someone in my team tells me they are pregnant, there is always a thought in my mind of 'oh god, how am I going to cover their shifts'.

We are not given extra staff to cover mat leaves, we just have to cope. If people can't pick up extra shifts then it generally falls to me to have cover the short fall, it's really hard.

So yes absolutely this is not women's fault, we have fought long and hard to even be allowed to work initially, and then for mat leave etc, and I support that 100%, but I can see where the OP is coming from as on the shop floor, when you're short staff, stressed, unable to carry on with projects as that person is gone for possibly a year, it is hard.

Is it the system's fault - Yes
Is this going to change - No

Absolutely no amount of telling management that mat cover is needed is going to change a thing. In the NHS (this is the only area I have experience in) they don't provide maternity cover for clinical areas.

In my trust at the moment there is a vacancy freeze so they aren't even replacing staff that leave. In the last couple of months I've had 2 people leave to go to new roles, plus 1 person on maternity, and have not been allowed to advertise for the leaver's posts. We are expected to cover the work with 3 less people, and we do, as at the end of the day if we don't it's the patients that would suffer.

Fun times!

So as I've said I can see where the OP is coming from, I don't think at all she is actually blaming the women, but it is easy for her to feel the frustration.

I stated clearly people should have children if they want them.

🙄

Not true.
We recruit maternity cover for a whole range of professional roles, including management.
Sometimes we give someone an opportunity to be seconded into the higher role and recruit to cover the lower level, but if there isn’t anyone appropriate then we’ll recruit externally.
It will be advertised as fixed term, maternity cover.

Yabu and Yanbu.

The facts that Matrrnity/Parental leave is important AND absences of several montjs cause problems in the workplace are both true simultaneously.

DH has a very specialised, public sector job. Theres a handful of people qualified to do it. They each have a "sector" of the UK they cover. When one had 3 months Paternity leave, the only way to cover it was them spliting that region. Meaning DH eas covering the Scottish Highlands and Oxfordshire. He was exhausted. But also reslected his colleague for taking the time off.

I would say its quite normal to want to have children and as long as you have one or two you are not contributing to the population growth.

I think the flip side is if there was no maternity leave and no part time working would these positions actually become harder to fill? You feel let down now, but would there just be longer vacancies. Men arent rushing to fill these posts and the younger generations are smaller. Surely we want to retain these expertise overal.

Whilst I understand women have always worked and MN is quite militant about that, its fair to say the type of work was often very different and lack of mat leave meant a lot of women did leave the workforce for the early years and then return to something else. Maternal employment rates have increased from 50% in 1975 to 75% or more now and actually pretty war maternal employment was lower than 50%.

I hear you, OP. But this is a management issue, not an issue with the women on maternity. In my company, maternity cover is organised the moment someone announces they are pregnant, and the handover is so smooth it rarely means the rest of us have to pick up additional work.

If you work for the NHS or similar, it does not surprise me that this is an issue - management incompetence seems rife!

Also, certainly for my family, equal maternity leave for men and women simply wouldn't work - for those who exclusively breastfeed on demand there's simply no way in the first 12 months my husband could have looked after our children for more than a few hours (breastfed babies often struggle to take a bottle, even of expressed breastmilk).

There are some companies now offering equal leave for fathers (not sharing the maternity leave). I know Aviva is one that offers 6 months full paid leave for fathers. I think this is great, to try and equal things up, but i guess if those companies still don't arrange appropriate cover, someone will still complain about women getting pregnant (because it will always be the woman's fault 🙄).

DS is self employed, so was only able to take 2 weeks off when his baby was born recently. But he absolutely will flex things to attend appointments/do nursery drop offs/pick ups for his other child etc

OP you are aiming your anger and frustration at the wrong people.

Nope, I mean professional. Its not an issue as its quite normal to hire professional staff on a contract in case you have a big project, and then they leave after its done.

These people would not be in a leading role but would be good enough to be team members.

Yes a lot of people like contracting and it pays more like 20 percent more. I said above I’ve done mat leave contracts and worked full time and had mat leave cover to cover my role, and recruited mat leave cover for people in my team going on mat leave. There’s no shortage of people doing mat leave cover contracts in my field (tech)

They aren't usually advertised, they are filled through agencies and often referred to as "interims".

Yes there are people who specialise in working like this and agencies that exist to supply them.

Some people like moving from job to job.

They are usually written as 1 year full time contracts in the job postings. I’ve done mat leave cover contracts.

Maybe the manager is on maternity leave!

Well obviously not but I just assumed this was normal everywhere and shocked that it is not. I can see where the OPs frustrations are then if this isn’t the norm. I would also be upset as the person going on mat leave that my role as a whole is being shared out among colleagues to have to take on and that my role as a whole isn’t being looked after. I have also done mat leave contracts and take it very seriously that you are essentially making sure someone’s job is looked after while they are off and that they come back and everything is in good order and their job is still secure.

I think the only answer is that women stop having babies, a population is overrated anyway.
Alternatively we should just not hire women at all, it worked in the old days when women were owned by men I think it could work again

Well yes, but usually for posts like receptionist, cleaners, junior lab technicians. Never people with professional qualifications or management roles.

You don’t work in the NHS do you!

Well I didn't say I would, did I, I said the planet would.

But come on, presenting yourself as having children in order to ensure the continuation of our species? When the world's population is 8 billion and still growing. 😆😆😆