Snow: another reason for small business not to employ mothers?

[Zealey]

OK, let me just say from the start this is probably trolling - and if you take it that way then I apologise as I don't mean offence to any individual personally, I just want to genuinely get the feel for the other side of the argument. I have a DD and a wife but she has had to take the day off work today as our daughter's school is shut. (Yes, I could've taken the day off instead of her, but we agreed mutually that I had more important things to do than her as I run a small business and she is part of a public sector which deals better).
My point is, with the majority of children coming from divorced and single homes these days, AIBU to not employ a single mum to my small business (when there is a man EQUALLY qualified to fill the job) because of all the time off they need and the risk even of them deciding to get pregnant again and force me through all merry dances of temps/maternity pay/will she/won't she come back/ etc.
There seems to be a knee jerk reaction that any such talk of the reality of this is sexist, but surely it is a fair point to at least accept the reality and have a discussion. However, I understand if someone feels the need to report this thread as it does pose some uncomfortable questions.
Thanks

This is why when our dc are ill my dh takes time off as his employers are so much more understanding than mine.

When he does it he is regarded as a good dad. If I do then I'm a poor employee.

Your attitude perpetuates this thinking.

All depends on the nature of the job doesnt it?

I never cease to amazed at the amount od small business springing up all over - but thats different issue. Taking gender out, if one partner is a milko (dairy franchise) and the other is on the switchboard at the local council, then it stands to reason that the switchboard operator will have more scope to alter hours, make time up, have a parental day - highly unlikely that the milko will have a fall back for his/her round nor be able to field 4am child care; factor in with the self employed the loss of earnings, business, outlay etc with someone in public sector or blue chip.

Have been a single parent forever (8yrs+)

I have worked until 4 months ago but you know what I can't offer employers even a little bit of what I need to give them... I have and it had a massively negative impact upon my child so I had to do less... but then I was being paid well to do a job that I couldnt do at full capacity...

So I tried to re-train but at the same time it all fell apart at home and I ended up off sick then leaving...

There is no one to pick up the pieces or help me out you see... ex not around, no family and son has ASD so I am screwed and quite frankly so is any employer that takes me on.

I am bloody good at what I do, have excellent experience and I have high academic qualifications but have to resign myself that whatever my potential is it is on hold.

So OP YABU - I wouldnt recommend employing me.... not in a million years.

Though if anyone is after a private tutor in about 4 months then I might well be your woman

I haven't read it all but does that mean you wouldn't employ people that lived a good bit away incase they couldn't get in regardless weather they have children? I work in the public sector and due to staff not managing to get in due to snow there has been a lot of times we've struggled as its actually not all that easy to get staff to cover as there's other areas short as well.

TBH you are unreasonable and rather sexist. Why pick on single mums. Wouldnt they be less likely to get pregnant again not having a partner Also I would love to know where you get the idea that most children are bought up by single mums? But really the most unreasonable thing you are doing is to assume that the man wont be involved in childcare. I pity your children.

BTW I am a LP in a senior job. Fortunately my employer is a lot more broad minded that you are and employs me for my expertise.

'You're probably right not to employ a woman as your rampant misogyny would make you an utterly shit boss for any woman in your employ.'

Nail hitting head. I'm probably still fertile, but I won't take mat leave ever again as my spouse has been sterilised, but I'd be lumped in with all your 'childbearing age' judgements. FWIW, when I did take mat leave, DH was a SAHD and I didn't take but about 4 months as we couldn't afford any drop in pay. I don't know any single mums who took a whole year off - they can't afford it the way women with partners who were earning could.

Maybe don't employ humans.

Those who are in a partnership or married may separate.

Your employee's spouse might die.

Their children may become terribly ill.

They might get ill or become disabled

They might find other employment opportunities.

They might sack you off as they have won the lottery.

That's the thing with humans :)

If you run a small business on tight margins which could be crippled by any one member of staff taking unpredictable or protracted absences (not just disrupted but crippled) you should look at running your business with contractors or having profit share as part of the pay structure instead as far as possible.

It isn't just single mothers - or any type of mother - or even any type of woman - who can cripple a business in this way. My friend spent three month's salary training someone (a bloke) up to do a specific role, at which point the bloke promptly left to go travelling. Part of the problem was sheer bad luck, part of it was his lack of company loyalty and just as significant a part of it was her not having anything in his reward structure or employment terms to incentivise or compel him to stay once he was trained (such as a monthly increase once trained, or monthly bonuses or a three month notice period, all of which have been fairly common in the bigger companies I've seen).

Don't know if you've noticed - but the law about 'maternity leave' has changed - the father can now take the time instead of the mother. At present this only applies for the last 6 months (or any fraction of that 6 months that the parents choose), but the government is planning to make it so that either parent can take any fraction of the 12 months. So worrying about the woman going off on maternity leave may no longer apply - you could employ a nice, safe, man, and then find that because his partner is the higher earner, they decide that he'll take the leave as paternity leave and be off for a year.

Indeed. Humans, eh? I find the level of endorsement of the OPs views most depressing. Humans don't actually exist for the convenience of small business owners.

OP - You run your own business and are presumably the boss? Why didn't you take your DD to work? Or as a girl is the workplace not somewhere she should aspire to be?

OP, whether you take on board the assurances given from posters' personal experience that female workers aren't a significantly higher risk to your business is of course up to you. Somehow I suspect you won't, because they don't chime in with your own perception of general attitudes to work, which seem to go deep with you. And I doubt that appealing to your aspirations for the future employment opportunities of your DD will persuade you to try and improve things by taking a stand now, by simply choosing the best applicant regardless of gender for your vacancy.

But you could consider what my DP did 3 years ago when in need of clerical support, when I went back to my profession after taking a career break with our youngest (while at home' I'd gradually taken on his books, pricing, costing, design work, quotations, client presentations and liason, invoicing, etc., but as his business expanded it had long ceased really to be a 'spare time' job).

Instead of putting all his eggs in one basket, he advertised it as a job share - with the expectation that it would probably appeal to mums with school age children. In fact it turns out one of them happens to be exactly that, but the other best candidate turned out to be a gentleman nearing retirement age, whose employer's company had gone bust, and saw no realistic prospect of another full time job.

They have both worked out really well. They cover for each other during holidays, and if the need arises, for medical, childcare or weather reasons (it rarely does - they are both conscientious to a fault). They sort their hours out between them, just informing my DP of what they have arranged. At interview DP ran the idea past them that if one was unable to work for any extended period, the other would be offered the chance to cover their hours, and ultimately (if one moved on) the other would be invited to apply for the post on a full time basis, or if they preferred not to, to be involved in interviewing for their colleague's replacement.

DP gets the peace of mind that even in worst case scenario (if one fell under a bus, god forbid!) at least his business wouldn't be crippled.

This is sexist bollocks.

Why don't you move your company to a country with no snow? It would be about as logical.

Yes women still do the majority of childcare, but would you employ a single parent father?

And did yo notice all the hospitals closing because the majority of the employees are female? Oh hang on, that's right, they didn't close did they, because their staff managed to get in.

Funnily enough, we have had several threads on relations where the woman is complaining of lack of childcare support from her partner which means she does not have time to run her own small business: he, of course, cannot take time off because he has a Real Job and his employer wouldn't stand for it.

Which makes me wonder what the set-up would be like in the OPs family if the OPs partner ran the business and the OP was employed.

slightly more foreward thinking employers, such as the one i work for, allow people to work from home. as such their staff retention is very high and they have much more highly skilled/experienced people than they would normally. mothers like me stay, as it fits in with other responsibilities. had i been a man i probably would have changed jobs to one that was better paid. hopefully not to a place like yours that sounds like its run by a dinasaur.

I think just because it is the way things work in your house does not mean it is the way it works in all homes. In our home it is more likely to be my husband takes time off if need be for the kids, though it is probably more equal than that. I get paid more so my job takes priority. Plus, I work from home and can set my hours round the kids so it would seem lake taking a bit of a liberty to be off when the kids are not in school. Mostly I work evenings when they are in bed anyway. We both work in the private sector. I get more holidays and we don't use any outside childcare so I take half days when the schools are planned to close, or DH has to take a whole day just to cover those six hours. I work just under five hours during school and over five in the evening, four days per week. This suits my employer very well because our business has to cover out-of-hours. On occasion, like sickness when kids are lethargic anyway, or bad weather, I have worked with one or both kids in house. Again this suits my employer as often other office based staff cannot make it in at all, even without caring responsibilities in the mix. I am rarely off sick myself. My work does not suffer.

When I was effectively a single parent, my retired parents and inlaws did all the childcare infill so even when I had to work short notice overtime there was no question that it would/could be covered. I also had at-home-mum sister in laws who would help out on occasion, and of course, the childrens' father although he lived and worked away. I accept that I was maybe luckier than most in that situation. But my attitude was that I was grateful to have such a flexible employer who let me fix my hours most of the time so I have always been very accommodating of their requests. At one point in our house we were both pressed by our employers to work the same hours so DH became a stay-at-home parent for a while and I went from part-time to full-time variable hour working with my employer to fully satisfy their needs. In that case, had my husband's small business employer been able to pay him more and give him better terms and conditions than I had, it would have been the other way around.

You get what you pay for regardless of the gender of your employee. There are laws limiting such sexist assumptions as yours for a reason. I have one female friend who is separated from her husband and he has custody of their children at the other end of the country. She is not in the childcare pool apart from a few weeks per year when she takes annual leave. Her employer would be totally wrong to discriminate against her on the basis of her being a single parent. She is both single and a parent but her work is her life, not the family home.

Legally there is no reason why a single mother should tell you that she is a single mother during recruitment -- as indeed a man does not have to tell you about his family circumstances.

So unless you plan on discriminating against ALL women, on the off-chance that they might be single mothers or the ones who provide cover when nursery/school is closed, I can't see how you'd make this decision. Given the number of men who do provide childcare and cover, I think you should discriminate against them too.

Oops. Looks like you'd better not employ anyone at all.

YABU to think you can just exclude women because she is a woman. Hiring a man who is equally qualified as a woman, purely because he is a man IS discrimination. I'd hate it if my husband thought like you.

We decide on the day who is taking the day if needed. There are certain days it is a nightmare for me to be off, and same for husband. We have been known to do a half day each, depending on deadlines/meetings. Oh, and whilst we earn the same basic, his earnings are more than mine as he gets commission payments and I do not.

No shooting you from here. From a small business perspective it is very very difficult to run the business if your employees keep going off work for whatever reason. You lessen the chances of that if you employ a man in the current climate (regardless of whether that is right or wrong).

This is a small business - no working from home, no making up time later, etc. he needs people to be in work, reliable and thinking of the job first to keep his company afloat. How many of us working mums are willing to commit to that 100%? Not me and that is why he shouldn't be employing us and why most of us choose to work in companies that have the option to offer us flexibility.

Sherbert, i am totally flummoxed by your point . DH commits to his job (as do I) but he has had more time off than me for illness, car breaking down etc than I have. So I would actually be a more reliable employee than him. We share emergency childcare issues.

sherbet - on that logic small businesses shouldn't employ men with old parents either? Several of my colleagues have had to take time off recently because their elderly parents have been ill and then for funerals etc - the latter can be up to a week if they need to clear people's houses out and deal with all the fall-out.

It is perfectly reasonable to want to only employ people who are not on call for childcare, and are unlikely to go on maternity leave.

It is totally unreasonable to assume that this means hiring men over women.

My DH is the one on call for childcare and has taken far more leave to look after the baby than I have.

When you generalize you discriminate.

Sherbert - I'm a bit at your post.

I work for a small business and am about to take my third maternity leave - it's gone from strength to strength in the time I've worked here, so I always get irritated by these "fertile and childbearing women are such a THREAT to small businesses" arguments.

"he needs people to be in work, reliable and thinking of the job first ". Fair enough - don't disagree, but YABU because:

a) that's what I do - even though I have a child!
b) there's no guarantee that you would get that from someone who didn't have children.

If the OP wants to manage the risks to his business from potentially unreliable workers, he should look at all his recruitment and retention practices. By planning to discriminate against a whole swathe of people, based on their potential fecundity, he's cutting off a valuable source of experience and skills.

Consider:

• a parent returning to the workforce might be happy to accept a lower salary in return for increased flexibility. If they can get a full time role done in four days, then it's a win win for both sides.

• if you had two part timers instead of a full timer, they could cover each other and you wouldn't risk losing 100% of their skills and experience if one of them leaves.

• maternity leave offers the opportunity to try out someone with

different skills and experience and to do something different. If you have to downsize for a bit, then not having to pay someone for up to a year can surely only be helpful!