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.

You sound like an absolute delight

Yes, providing the poor performance is not related to the pregnancy and the employer has pitch perfect records of probation meetings stating objectives, what hasn't been met, support in place to meet them, etc.

@HavanaOhna presumably she isn't planning to take the full year so cover will be temporary.

You are stuck between a rock and a hard place if you feel she needs to go off and she says she’s fine. If you push it too much, you have to be careful that she doesn’t feel it was forced and you open yourself/the company up to legal proceedings down the line.

Any annual leave she could use, even if it’s technically brought forward? Does your company offer paid parental leave? If so, could you suggest she takes annual leave now and takes some parental leave before returning to work after mat leave? She’s clearly very concerned about money if she’s trying to power through.

Also, how you decide to play this probably depends on whether you’d like to retain her after mat leave.

It’s a tough situation for everyone. I doubt she’s unaware of her performance and probably feels crap about it too!

She sounds a bit of a pisstaker.

Why is she taking the full day off for a scan? I had many check ups towards the end of my last pregnancy (daily ctg monitoring). She should be going on maternity leave and not leaving the brunt for the other members of staff.

Then people wonder why woman of child bearing age are at a disadvantage when it comes to job hiring.

But she not being sacked cos she pregnant. She being sacked because of performance. And while her performance is bad because she’s effectively ill. She is refusing to go off sick and therefore her performance is able to be judged in a standard way because she is saying she is fit for work.

As her illness is pregnancy related, you’d have a hell of a time in an ET trying to prove she wasn’t sacked because of her pregnancy. For the sake of 8 weeks it would be an incredibly stupid thing to do.

Well what are you going to do to cover her mat leave?
Do that now.

Ask you boss if you can grant some paid compassionate leave for her special circumstances, if you think that the situation warrants it .

She obviously can’t afford to go off sick. What would you be doing with her workload if she went off sick? Would you be hiring another employee for her time off plus mat leave? Or dividing amongst the team? If she’s scraping by on 50% capacity, give her even less to do and let her stay 🤷🏻‍♀️ unfortunately this should have been covered in your companies policies. For example in the NHS if we go off sick in the last 4 weeks before maternity leave we have to take it as early maternity leave.

OP I would just put her on sick leave and pay her. Just keep the details to yourself and get the temp in asap.

Some years ago I had exactly the same situation. It was a nightmare. It was going to blow up into a huge court case. The mum to be was pregnant within 8 weeks of joing the company. Unlike your valued employee this person was bad at her job. She'd also been bullied by the CFO. When she decided to come back (she had said she wouldn't) she threatened all sorts, newspapers, online.
Sadly I fell on my sword and left so she could inherit part of my job. She had wanted a promotion. Be very, very careful.

wow, you clearly haven’t had dreadfully ill pregnancy symptoms. A piss taker??? She’s dragging herself in despite obvious lot being unwell but can’t afford to go off as she’ll have no income and a baby on the way. Vile opinion.

This is awful. She’s clearly unwell but can’t afford to stop work.

please grant her compassionate leave or paid sick leave - for everyone’s sake.

It is taking the piss to refuse to go off sick when she is obviously sick. She doesn’t have to treat her employer and colleagues like this, she is choosing to.

People like her are a valid reason for employers to want to avoid employing women who are likely to get pregnant soon after employment.

I’d speak to the outsourced hr again, explain that she’s not performing half of her job. See what they can legally do.

How has she used up her sick leave? I thought maternity absences didn’t count towards standard sick leave? Can you review this?

Her pregnancy complications are contributing to her capability to fill the role - or performance- therefore discrimination if you sack her for that.

if the GP isn’t signing her off, and Occ Health aren’t signing her off, and you’re not willing to offer discretion on sick pay policy, then you simply need to focus on her backfill sooner rather than later in order that her workload can naturally reduce and relieve the pressure on everyone.

That’s horrible. Her work could be fine by then.

Surely either she’s sick so she goes off sick, or she’s fit to work so her performance should be judged as a fit to work person. She’s taking the piss.

To be honest it sounds like you've given an inch and she's taken a mile. She can't just decide that she's going to stay at work to be paid but not do anything.

It's all very well the CEO relying on an outsourced HR department and telling you to 'manage' the situation, but your hands are tied! You can't realistically do anything constructive, without running it past the CEO, and if all he does is want you to consult HR, you're going around in circles.

An outsourced HR department doesn't know the company, they are likely just applying generic employment law, to the situation. They aren't going to come up with any meaningful solutions, that resolve or at the very least help the situation.

You need proper legal advice to be honest, but again to obtain that you'd need to go through the CEO, who probably won't see why it's needed!! I think the recruitment process to find maternity cover for your employee is paramount here. Can you find out if you can ask your employee for a Fit For Work Note from her midwife/GP? As an employer you have a duty of care towards her too.

Sadly, financial pressures are making this woman, make poor decisions.

I would speak to your boss and suggest a week's special leave with full pay. If agreed I would tell her to put her feet up and not worry for a week and that you would meet on her first day back and agree a plan going forwards.

Hopefully she will either feel better after a break and be able to manage half time or similar without feeling as ill or it would help her realise she needs to go on sick and maternity will kick in.

Do you think it's all maternity related or has she got in a negative spiral worrying about money and thinking she could lose her job. Would some reassurance help as you seem keen to keep her?

Her time of employment versus pregnancy are completely irrelevant. A person with 10 yrs service can have a complicated pregnancy and the same company policies would apply.

no-one is signing her off sick. Not the GP. Not the company Occ health. Whilst it’s clear she is struggling. She faces into people like you every day continuing a culture of ‘pregnant women must be taking the piss’

Its why pregnancy is protected in employment law. And rightly so.

OP the other thing you can do is use managerial discretion to offer her adjustments. If she’s only able to do 50% of her work then plan for that and allow her to work reduced hours on full pay. But again you need to speed up finding her mat cover.

The new threshold applies to any dismissal that takes place on or after 1 January 2027. Service accrued before that date counts toward the 6-month threshold. Therefore, an employee hired on or before 1 July 2026 will have accrued 6 months of continuous service by 1 January 2027 (which is likely to be before she is back from may leave) and will gain protection on that date.

I think what worth considering … if she did go off sick what would change? The business would have more money to hire someone else? Unfortunately they might need to do that earlier regardless if her role is essential and not being done.

Not an employment lawyer but married to one. You need to talk to an employment lawyer, not Mumsnet. The amount of terrible advice you’ve received here which will land you in a tribunal would be funny if it wasn’t so shocking.