Small businesses and Mat Leave etc

[Catlady02]

This is not to offend anyone, but I was talking to a friend yesterday who runs a successful small business with her husband. They employ 4 members of staff all females and fee earners. She was saying one member of staff is on mat leave and is due back in a few months. Another is just about to go on so that will be her staff reduced by 50% for a few months which as a small business relying on fee income is not great. She cannot employ temps as it’s specialised. I know you could argue and rightly so, they are only taking what they’re entitled to and she can claim back the payments from the HMRC but she reckons she is already losing approx £4k per month in fee income with one on mat leave who wants to come back part time and got arsy when told it wouldn’t be possible as it’s a small company and they need her to be full time. I think she has a valid point when she says there needs to be some support for employers especially small businesses or else like her they’ll be reluctant to take on women. Must admit it wasn’t something I thought about until then.

Definitely a problem for small businesses (maybe even medium ones too.)

It's obviously great that nowadays women get to take time off after a baby and get some money while they're off but the actual business is covering part of these costs, not the state. It should be covered by the state entirely. I'm not a business owner but I imagine that if I was, the prospect of pregnancy/ maternity leave would seriously influence my choices on who to employ.

I also agree that many people take their flexible working requests too far. However I've a lot of sympathy for lower paid workers who are actually better off working part time with benefits top up rather than full time work and full time childcare fees. The answer to this is good quality subsided childcare.

yes government should cover it and also pay mothers to parent for 2 years. about 300 per child per month would be okay

We have just employed a man instead of a woman for this reason. We have 2 women off at the moment and is has been so costly. We can't afford to take the risk again.

Absolutely. And the new protections coming in for pregnant women - have all the right intentions, but run the risk of making it even more likely that some small businesses will shy away from employing women in their child bearing years.

I used to run a successful small business. When our HR advisor raised the possibility of a job candidate getting pregnant I used business-speak for STFU.

It's not a successful small business if it can't meet this obligation. A successful business plans for this very obviously eventuality.

Your friend might want to redefine "successful" if she can't handle this.

My employee was fucking immense, I gave her a raise within a few months.

Oh and my current employer? Hired me knowing I was already pregnant.

Honestly, business owners need to have their shit together or they have no business being in business.

I’m so nervous about when the manager of my company gets pregnant. I will have to pay her salary twice for a while and even tho my business is doing well, that will mean I earn less than both of them and It’s my business. Most people I’ve employed lately I do tend to go for the younger ones who ca be trained rather than older experienced who are likely to go off. I know some will come for me for this, but that’s the way it goes.

Remember that the cost of wages, PAYE, stock, rent and utilities have gone up a massive amount. When the business started I could happily pay maternity pay and a temp and still take home alot myself but things have changed a lot very rapidly.

I suppose the magic money tree will pay for those generous benefits. No wonder the country's in a mess.

The Government pays most of it.

https://www.gov.uk/recover-statutory-payments

Thats just of the statutory tho

Good point. You won't have to pay two full salaries though.

The problem is you magic up fully trained temps, many jobs and not just senior ones have years of experience. Larger companies have more flexibility because they can more staff around but loosing 50% of your employees just isn’t sustainable as a business. I’m well past the child rearing stage but I do understand why employers are nervous to employ 30 something year old women

Only the statutory bit. In my friend’s case as the employees are responsible for generating income she’s down 50% per month. Who’s going to cover that?

If the first person wants to come back part time, and eventually the other person might too, it is probably worth her trying to recruit and train a new person who can do part time plus maternity cover.

Small businesses tend only to offer SMP for that reason, as well as lower pension contributions.

Maternity leave is less problematic than long term sick leave - I worked in a team where there was a maternity leave and someone on MH leave unexpectedly. That absence wasn’t covered and it went on for 7 months!

Future taxpayers and workers are a good investment for this country.

Yeah true. I was being a bit dramatic 😂

I did suggest something like that.Unfortunately it’s not just a case training someone, they need to be fully qualified and chartered.

As a pp has said. Businesses need to factor stuff like this in.

True, but she'll be paying two fewer salaries out of that. I appreciate overheads will remain constant so she'll be losing out, but not to the tune of 50% of the business.

I think you're wrong to focus on maternity leave though. As an manager myself, there are all kinds of reasons staff can end up costing more than you expect, the main ones being sickness and poor performance. Maternity is actually relatively straightforward as you generally know well in advance so can at least put some contingencies in place. The issue is really how hard it is for small businesses in general compared to large ones who can absorb costs.

If I was advising your friend I'd be suggesting she try to a) expand within what's possible and b) diversify into less specialist work so there's income from work that is more straightforward to cover.

@Unexpecteddrivinginstructorthat was my thought too.

You’re right there are all kinds of reasons why staff can cost more some of which she’s experienced. She fully funded an employee through their professional exams only for them to bugger off and set up their own business once they’d stayed for the time she put in place they needed to after qualifying so she’s very reluctant to do that again. She runs an Accountancy and Auditing company so not sure how she can diversify.