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.

if you don’t have maternity cover lined up, surely it is better for the company that she’s doing 50% and WFH than that she goes on mat leave early (and the colleague who suggested that in a not particularly friendly way should be told that they shouldn’t say it again)

She’s working from home but not doing much work?

I think you really need to get occupational health in to make sure she’s actually fit for work as I’d be worried about my duty of care here. There are policies here to protect her job, her income is a different situation for her to work out but you need to focus on what your responsibilities are to her - and part of that is making sure she isn’t making herself ill by working when she shouldn’t be. Do you have an occupational health department you can go to for advice here alongside Hr?

Speak to HR about suspending her with full pay to protect her and the baby until her mat leave begins.

https://www.gov.uk/medical-suspensions-from-work

I would talk to HR about this. I would be worried about duty of care to someone who is obviously unwell, despite insisting they’re OK.

I'd wait till she came back from mat leave and then dismiss her if she has less than two years service. Too risky to dismiss before because of the legislation.

That’s lovely. Sack someone when they’ve just had a baby. They are trying to manage the situation now not in a years time
@HavanaOhna can her mat cover start early?

If she’s insisting she’s fine then there’s no justification for poor work output and needs to be dealt with accordingly

I'd be focusing on recruitment asap. She could end up hospitalised at any moment and your staff will be more annoyed if no one is covering at all.

Another that would be worried about duty of care. God forbid, imagine if something happens. If she is as poorly as you say, I think the only choice is to cover her sick pay in full. Perhaps speak your outsourced HR advisor and ask if this is possible.

The risk here is unacceptably high from both a discrimination and duty of care perspective. I wouldn't want to force the issue either way.

I was talking only about her performance though, not pregnancy?

I absolutely would never want someone sacked because of pregnancy!

Performance though, is a legitimate reason for which employment could be ended.

Agreed. There is some terrible advice being offered on here. Stick with HR service or call ACAS.

Sounds like she has done a lot to support her already!!!

I would separate the two issues, manager here but not HR.

I would address the performance issues as one thing and document what reasonable adjustment you have made and what support is in place for her, which should include the longer lunch breaks, WFH, flexible hours, and make sure you have done a risk assessment.

Make this formal and put her on a performance improvement plan with clear objectives, and set weekly reviews.

Whilst pregnancy is protected, if someone is not capable of doing their job then that needs to be addressed, the PIP and weekly review may just be what is needed to help her understand the impact her not taking time off is having on her work, colleagues and self.

She then may become more amenable to things like using her holidays to shorten her working week, planned unpaid rest periods etc etc.

If the PIP doesn’t work, you will have to contact your HR provider and see about suspension, I believe you can suspend pregnant employees, but it has to be on full pay and only after all other options have been exhausted.

Sorry just remembering more from when I had to deal with a similar issue in the past, I don’t think you can call it a PIP, you can say the weekly review is part of the risk mitigation from her workplace pregnancy risk assessment.

Your CEO sounds shit - offloading the responsibility but not power to make decisions? I’d speak to him about how you can be empowered to accelerate recruitment and ACAS about how to manage pregnant employee, starting with face to face occupational health assessment

Whilst there is the possibility of a PIP for capability, the timeframe you now have before mat leave probably isn’t enough to complete the process so I’d just let her trundle on with an empathetic approach and focus on what you can do for the rest of the team - ensure her replacement is in asap, offer paid overtime to cover her tasks along with flexibility to do the overtime at home and ensure those above you pitch in/are aware how bad things are getting with team morale. Keep written notes of everything as you may need them in the future when she’s back if things don’t improve.

You should also start thinking about what you’ll do before she is due to return and have it diaried in accordance with her notice period to get your HR ducks in a row - she may choose not to so you need to think about options for cover and replacing the role. She may submit a flexible working request - what would be workable? How will you handle ensuring the baby is cared for by someone other than her whilst she’s working at home (if money is tight she may look to do this)? How would you reduce her role if she wants to go part time and where would that work go?

It’s a very hard time but don’t overlook the rest of the team.

This is what discretionary leave us for. Go back to HR and say that as her line manager you would like to give her 8 weeks paid discretionary leave to enable her to take the time to rest up to her due date.

You basically have 8 weeks to go quite possibly less and then she’s not going to cost the firm anything if you aren’t paying her SMP. Realistically if you put her on a PIP you aren’t going to complete the process before she’s off anyway.

this is the problem when you don’t qualify for SMP, the financial concerns outweigh the ability to make sensible decisions.

DiL was advised by her company to her HP to sign her off so the something else so it didn’t affect her maternity leave.

This is out of date. It’s now 6 months. Legislation changes Jan 2027, but that will track back to cover those employed 6 months before that.

She's going on mat leave very soon anyway. 8 weeks is nothing. Redistribute her work as you would have to do anyway and just leave her some token amount of work.

I've had to manage similar employees and this is what we do. Everyone can empathize with a shit pregnancy. It is what it is.

Could she do reduced hours full pay. That way you still have cover for the remaining pregnancy, by your own admission she’s not actually able to do 100% atm but you are paying for it. Perhaps if she didn’t have the pressure to be working full time she might be able to scramble her best self together for a few hours each day, offering more structure for all. It’s a horrible situation for everyone, she will remember how she was treated in pregnancy. You have the chance to build a very loyal relationship with her, or spend the next year waiting for her to ultimately move onto somewhere else.

This ^^
I was suspended on full pay at about 26 weeks because to continue was a risk to my and the baby’s safety.
( I was in a theatre show which involved climbing ladders, running up and down stairs etc)

This seems like a really good idea. It's a shame there's not a better word for it as "suspended" has connotations of it being for bad reasons!