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.

I don’t think there’s anything you can do. Just get her maternity cover sorted asap.

I would be honest with her about her performance though, and tell her how it’s affecting her colleagues.

Would her going on Mat leave early actually help? What is the plan to cover her workload when she goes off?

Ultimately your and your colleagues issue is that her work is not being completed, there isn't any cover organised at the minute so if she does go off sick or on Mat leave early I don't see how you would be in a better position. Team morale is still going to be low because your going to be covering 100% of her workload

These ideas always sound lovely but often small businesses just cannot afford it. The company I work for has 5 employees. If they decided to just let someone be off on full pay they couldn’t afford to pay someone else to do that job so the rest of us would need to do it. So we’d be doing an extra quarter of someone’s job for no extra pay for months.

My husband’s job is a huge company but his department is tiny. Only 3 of them. They had a similar issue with a pregnant woman. They let her go off sick on full pay from 6 months. They could afford it but because they hadn’t arranged maternity cover yet my husband and his colleague needed to cover her job for 2 months. They got so many customers shouting at them as orders were getting further and further behind. No one in charge cared though because it want them getting shouted at.

But in this case, the woman is clearly ill and struggling. It would be for all of a month. Her health is at risk and the company needs to cover their back.

It’s a very difficult situation all round and I feel for you OP in the middle.

My approach would be

Follow your HR service advice rather than any bonkers suggestions on here, comply with everything you have to do to support pregnant woman

Use your own manager as much as possible, they may be overseas but so what, their pay grade is above yours for a reason, so don’t absorb all the stress of this yourself

Make sure all other staff are supported, listen to their feedback and tell them what support you can give them.

That's incorrect. It does not 'travel back'.

Can I ask where you got the idea that it does?

But you don't have a replacement or cover so surely her doing 50% is better than no one doing anything? I would put her on reduced duties full pay WFH , other staff don't need to know what she's being paid just that she's doing reduced duties. The likelihood is she won't last another 8 weeks anyway before being off sick or having the baby

But they haven't got anyone else to do her role they tried to recruit and were unsuccessful so surely it's better she's doing 50% than they get rid and have no one doing anything

You make it sound like you are paying her to go to appointments out the goodness of your heart, you legally have to do this!!! You can only force someone to start their maternity leave early if they go off sick for a pregnancy related illness in the last 4 weeks before their due date. I say suck it up. If you employ females there is always the risk they will get pregnant and will cost you, thankfully there are laws in place to protect the pregnant woman.

I am currently pregnant and have a fantastic employer, granted I work for the civil service so it is completely different, I took a day off after finding out our baby had an abnormality at my 20 week scan (I just couldn't concentrate, my mind was elsewhere), my boss offered me more time off or to reduce my hours longer term to help, I did decline but she's been fabulous. I am having more scans etc now as a result, but it is of course completely fine, my boss always says "don't rush back". I was unwell when it was hot recently, absolutely no issue me stopping at lunch time when it got too hot (I'm 100% wfh so no aircon in my house). Thing is I am a reliable employee and my boss knows when I return from mat leave I will be back to 100%, this is the second child I have had whilst employed here, the first I was actually already pregnant when I started, again no issues.

I'd hate to work for somewhere like this and feel very thankful I know I can slow down without any issues if I need to as I enter my third trimester. I worked up until my due date last time and will do the same this time. I'm actually the only person in my team who has never had at least 2 months plus off sick for "stress" or "anxiety" (our job really isn't that stressful, it has stressful moments to meet deadlines but it isn't constant!), at least with pregnancy it has a very defined end point! I've picked up extra work when my colleagues have been off sick for prolonged amounts of time so I don't feel bad doing the same now.

I think you sound like you've been too lenient and actually a rubbish manager.

The rest of your team is being impacted and in a small team that affect morale greatly. You can't put her over the other team members. She's new as well. Where's the loyalty to your long standing staff?

She's either sick and starts her mat leave or she's working and should be doing her job. I'd give her a performance review and a warning. She's being selfish trying to hold out starting her mat leave and messing up the rest of the team.

Maternity allowance is basically the same as smp and she's already done her qualifying weeks so whys she stressed snout that?

What was she doing before this job?
Because if shes 7 months pregnant she was essentially already pregnant when she interviewed?

Well there’s not much you can do. If you won’t pay her and she needs the money this is what happens.

Because it doesn't last very long. If you take more mat leave before the baby is born, you have less paid leave WITH your baby.

You can doss off because you work for the civil service. Actual businesses can't afford it.

Having been inside the civil service, I noticed staff barely worked at 50% capacity anyway. The team i was visiting spent long long hours daily on long distance phone calls. We also had to hand deliver paperwork 2 hours away and 4 people went along- "for the day out".

You won't be missed. In an 8 person team in a business attempting to make a profit, 1 person dossing is huge.

I was in a similar situation. Exhausted and allowed to WFH at 7 months, I really struggled to work, I didn’t need the money but was determined to do my best (I don’t think I appreciated how unwell I was, I didn’t have a diagnosis at the time), not long after at a routine check up I was told I couldn’t leave the hospital until the baby arrived (and was immediately put onto sick pay) and then my mat leave kicked in at 8 months when the baby came early. You sound like a lovely manager. I hope you find a way through this.

Well her lack of financially planning before getting knocked up is not OPs responsibility. If she wanted more time off than she could have saved up beforehand

Well her lack of financially planning before getting knocked up is not OPs responsibility. If she wanted more time off than she could have saved up beforehand

SMP and Mat allowance are not the same. SMP is 90% of your wage for the first 6 weeks. Mat Allowance is £776 a month for those 6 weeks. For most people that would mean thousands lost.

Maternity allowance is not the same as smp, you don't get the first 6 weeks at 90% pay so the difference can be considerable, you just get £190 for 39 weeks. If you start mat leave early it means you are returning to work with a much smaller baby, if you have to put them in nursery funding help only starts from 9 months old, so not only will they have to send a much smaller baby into childcare it will have a financial implications too. I can see why she is trying to hang on as long as possible.

Yes because pregnancy is always planned

Catch a grip

Them getting shouted at is managements fault not the pregnant woman though. Imagine preferring that a pregnant woman be put into financial hardship because she’s sick than your grown adult husband get raised voices on the phone for a month or two. I get shouted at all the time at work it’s not exactly scary you just say sorry and plow on.

She’s taking the piss and is a rubbish employee, pregnant or not. She will understand exactly what she’s doing by refusing to go sick despite bringing state of her limited output and the hugely negative impact on her colleagues but she is selfishly continuing to play her game at the expense of the business and other employees.

This is where pregnancy discrimination laws go too far. You should be able to get rid of her without the risk of tribunal in situations like this.

I think you need to do whatever you have to either make her increase what she is doing or leave. Your priority has to be the employees who are not only doing their job but covering someone else’s.

Wow.

Even if she had saved up - and in fact maybe she has, we don't actually know - starting mat leave earlier than you hope to means that money runs out sooner and you have to return to work earlier than planned.