Employer reference

[selly24]

At what point do we need to tell employers we are prospective adopters. When is the employer reference taken up?
TIA

We told ours once we entered stage 2. It wasn't actually asked for until near end of stage 2 though. However, we both work for national companies and it was not as simple as your line manager writing it, it had to come from HR and it ended up being the last thing we managed to get hold of, with a little stress. You may want to factor that into your time frame if you know you might be in the same boat

Thanks for the replies. I am just very nervous as I work for a small employer and believe if I reveal my plan too early I will be fired aka managed out. I know I am entitled to adoption leave but the nature of my role would mean it would be hard to return after children join our family without major changes to my hours etc...
After 15 years of full time hard work, it would seem unfair not to get any adoption pay. Stressed and need some guidance....

I had concerns, as they announced they were making redundancies a couple of weeks after I told them, I pretty much thought that was the end of my job, because until you're on AL, or rather until you've been matched with a matching certificate in hand (I wasn't at that point) you are not protected like announcing you're pregnant. I was surprised by the level of support I got and you may be too, so don't rule that out just yet Although, I don't work for a small company and they turned out to be really fair. It's really hard isn't it. You'll have people tell you that they can't 'manage you out' and you could fight it if they did but while that may be true I don't think it's a battle I would have undertaken, unless they'd been really blatant about it, so when told that, it just frustrated me tbh.
With your circumstances Id personally leave it until the last possible moment and pray for a good result, there's not much more you can do. I would avoid as much as possible any talk of hours when you return, I'd play it down as 'I can't even think about anything other than the process right now, on top of my day to day job that is'. You don't have to notify them until 4 months before your return date whether you're even coming back and then you can discuss hours. I was surprised by the number of people who thought I may well come back full time (I'm not, i am requesting part time). If they are only paying the statutory adoption pay, that's government funded, so they won't have lost out....I also know the guilt I had and still do about impacting on my colleagues, company etc. despite watching tons of others go on maternity for years, though now we have children my priorities have obviously changed, as I knew they would. This is definitely extra stress you don't need, my heart goes out to you, but I promise you won't care when LO(s) finally arrive. Fingers crossed it works out for you.

Thanks so much tomatoes. Really encouraging.