Wwyd? Pregnant employee. Don’t want to be sued but, ah!

[HavanaOhna]

I’m manager for a small company, there are about 8 employees so very small. We had a lovely young woman started in the new year who found out she was pregnant shortly after. Absolutely fine.

we’ve been very supportive as her pregnancy has been complicated, loads of additional scans, scares, admissions. We’ve always told her to take the time she needs for these, paid and to take extra time after them as they can be taxing. Sometimes she takes the whole day for one scan and that’s ok.

The issue is she’s now 7 months, seems incredibly poorly but won’t go on sick due to finances (has exhausted sick pay, this would be unpaid now). She’s WFH, at her request and our blessing, and is doing I’d say the bare minimum. Just scraping by work wise. Every time I see her on teams she looks gaunt, and exhausted, and has admitted that she’s tearful, not sleeping, and has had further pregnancy issues. These are all supported by documentation.

Then a few days ago she came into the office. First time in months. She could barely sit at her desk, she wasn’t doing much all day, up and down to the loo, extended lunch break. I really feel for her. We had a wellbeing meeting and she’s insisting she’s fine. I organised an occupational health session and she reiterated to them she’s fine, but you can see she’s on her knees.

I don’t really know what to do. She’s vital at work and although things are being done she’s working at I’d say 50% capacity. If this is mentioned, she promises she will sort it out so ends up working into the evening (which again we don’t want). A colleague became so frustrated the other day she pointedly asked her why she doesn’t go on maternity early and this wasn’t met well. Others are having to pick up the slack heavily, and some colleagues have started to avoid her completely work wise.

HR (no in house, outsourced) said not much we can do as she cannot be forced to take maternity leave early and if she says she’s not sick she’s not sick but I don’t know how we can do another 8 weeks going forward. I feel team morale is low, she is obviously unwell.

They can a) use their discretion as to applying the policy in this instance and b) review if the policy is generally fit for purpose.

i suspect they get 10 days full pay which is why it’s been exhausted with hospital admissions and so on.

which is a crap provision before putting someone on unpaid leave or SSP.

though the manage hasn’t even mentioned sorting out SSP for the employee so I suspect she is entirely out of her depth with an absent ceo and outsourced HR service.

Hi all, sorry for the late reply. After meeting with the CEO, we’ve decided to offer reduced hours (50% workload, 50% hours on full pay for the remaining weeks with the large emphasis on health and wellbeing rather than performance issues. There are performance issues but it’s obvious that pregnancy is playing a huge part and it would be hard to distinguish without blurring the lines and risking discrimination.

Its my job to manage, but I also don’t feel like putting a young pregnant woman through a performance review when we have such little weeks left, and she will be going off anyway- seems counterproductive at this point and could cause stress on the baby/mum.

I also don’t agree with people saying she blindsided us by falling pregnant immediately, I mean my best friend has been trying for a baby for almost three years, and has gone for promotions, other jobs- you can hardly put your life on hold on a maybe this month and women have a hard place in the work place without these barriers.

I think this has opened up to us as organisation though how shit our HR outsourcing is and even occupational health. Nothing offered direct guidance on the next steps other than watch and wait.

Thank you for all the advice and suggestions as well, I was able to put them forward to my boss. It helped more than HR😂

I think this is what I was trying to get at. It seems incongruous that pregnancy related sickness absence is protected by law, but the pay that goes with it, isn’t.

Call me cynical but if that was the case I imagine there would be a significant increase in pregnancy related illnesses

really glad to hear this OP. You sound like a great manager

You and your CEO sound like great employers to work for. I'm sure this woman will be grateful to you and hopefully will be a great addition to your team once she fully is able to join it.

That’s quite an unnecessarily arsey response to a simple correction.

If you read the paragraph you have quoted back to yourself slowly - you’ll see that you are wrong.

I pay A LOT of taxes as uber high earner and was on maternity leave twice and I’m super happy for my taxes to be spent there.

Yep @rwalker you are cynical. And completely wrong.

@HavanaOhna you and your CEO seem like great bosses and have come up with a great solution. Hope it goes well.

Unfortunately I’ve had experience of this when managing maternity leaves
You will always get piss takers in the workplace pregnant women aren’t exempt from that

So she's already working from home as a reasonable adjustment but only doing half the work she needs to be doing?
But rather than confront this, you've said she officially has half the workload and half the hours at full pay?
So she'll actually be doing 12.5% of her job based on current performance then?
Her poor colleagues.
I've been one. It sucks to carry the full workload and stress of a colleague not pulling their weight. And yes, I've had three kids and gestational diabetes.
You'd better get in her replacement quick and hope your team don't catch on.

At my (FTSE 100) employer, any sick leave taken from (i think) 36 weeks triggers the start of mat leave. I believe that's a common clause.

Too late to change for this woman but one to look at putting in place going forward.

I would also say a whole day for a routine scan probably sounds excessive.

Ideally she'd be off on sick pay, with her maternity cover starting ASAP. Can you expedite the mat cover recruitment (different agency?)
Is all of the work critical now?
Is there anything that you could bring in a temp to do?
Is any of the staff interested in extra hours for extra pay?

You mentioned Occ Health, but what did they advise? Is she fit to work and if so, with what adjustments? Feels a bit like it's all been made up as you go along, with the best intentions

Colleagues should not be making comments to her about starting mat leave early etc so that really does need to be managed.

Op you should be putting her on SSP for the remaining 50% that she isn’t working nor being paid, that will help alleviate her financial concerns, not by much, bit she is still entitled to it if you are suggesting she works part time for 8 weeks due to capability caused by pregnancy related sickness.

equally, if she rejects your offer for the same reasons, because she can’t afford half pay for 2 months, what then?

Only if she’s off for full days, not entitled if working eg half days every day

The way I read it she's getting full pay? For 50% hours?
So then wouldnt need sick pay on top?

sorry If it wasn’t clear, she’s not on half pay. We are paying full pay for 50% hours.

Well yes technically, but a lot less than it would cost us at tribunal.

I agree. Glad OP didn’t listen to some of the terrible, and occasionally downright horrible, advice.

This is a reasonable and compassionate response from the OP/employer to support their employee during the last few weeks of a complex pregnancy.

What would not be reasonable is to expect an employee to 'pull their weight' as if the pregnancy difficulties weren't happening. And I am someone who carried on as normal during pregnancy, until I developed pre-eclampsia leading to an emergency CS, a premature birth and a disabled child. I will never know whether trying to slog away regardless could have contributed to that.

The moral of this is that pregnancy difficulties are something you don't muck around with. And that however inconvenient and expensive it may be to support a pregnant employee, the alternatives are worse.

Its madness in ANY situation that someone would get paid for a job they're not doing, once sick leave has been exhausted.

I had to leave my job despite illness resulting from a protected characteristic. If you can't do the job they can still get rid of you, which is fair enough.

It's stunning to me that people actually get paid for not doing their jobs - incredible. Some people are so lucky, it's like another world. An awful lot of us live in the world where it's extremely hard to find work, employers make demands, sick pay is SSP, and you're never going to be kept on if unwell too long.

It certainly isn't fair that a small business has to pay someone for not working. Surely being paid for work you're not doing isn't a "reasonable" adjustment?
In terms of pregnancy, if we have decided women should be paid/supported during this time, then it should be a benefit avaialable to all, and paid from taxation.

If an employer decides to pay an individual for a fixed period due to a very specific temporary situation eg a complex pregnancy) then that can be a reasonable decision to support an employee. And no it isn't 'madness'; as a matter of fact an employer is sometimes obliged to do this; eg a medical suspension when an employee cannot work safely.

I obviously don't know the circumstances in which you had to leave your job and I am sorry that happened to you. Yes the bottom line is that sometimes an individual can no longer do a job due to a disability; but an employer should do everything possible in terms of adjustments to support them and enable them to work. Dismissal due to disability should be a very very last resort.

Pregnancy doesn't apply as it is a temporary condition albeit covered by the Equality Act. It has been stated several times on this thread that if an employer should 'get rid of' a pregnant employee they would be breaking the law and face a tribunal.

If a small business like this can manage to pay the employee for reduced work to support her and considers it an appropriate and reasonable step, then so can many other employers. No it isn't fair that many others are not supported as much because so many employers arbitrarily treat their staff less well; I personally think that those who treat their staff poorly don't deserve to have good people working for them and the staff in those places should vote with their feet when possible and find a better employer (I know it often isn't so straightforward).

Civil servants also pay tax? What a dumb thing to say.

So because you had a shit time she should be treated badly too?

Well I can top that. Just had my third child and terrible HG (I required drips and a lot of drugs). I managed two women also pregnant at the same time, one who was doing about 50% of her role and one with severe complications who did need to be off all day for scans and tests and I needed to step in for.

I covered their work and shifted what I could. Because I'm a manager and it's my job to pick up the slack. And I'm also a person with empathy who knows these are temporary situations. It sounds like this pregnant employee is difficult to replace / recruit - OP would do well to keep her.

She needs to demonstrate that empathy to her team.