To think that this 'advice' column in today's Guardian is bang out of order?

[Aliama]

I'm fuming at this and wondering if I'm overreacting?

www.theguardian.com/money/2014/feb/01/dear-jeremy-work-issues-solved

Excuse me? Did I misread that? In what fucking world is it 'reprehensible' for a woman to fail to tell a prospective employer that she's planning on getting pregnant at an interview? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it fucking illegal for a company to allow something like that to sway their decision anyway, even if said woman is already pregnant?

Ugh.

My point is that most companies do not suffer that much from people going on maternity leave when you look at the big picture. I think flexible working is a perk you can offer your employees which can make you more attractive as an employer without increasing costs - if there is no business case for doing it you don't have to offer it. If somebody works for you for 10 years and takes 2 x 6 month's mat leave that is cheaper than employees who last a year and then leave for a better offer. Obviously some employees will go on maternity leave, be completely rubbish and leave after a year - there are no guarantees. However, I think once you have children you have more incentive to be loyal.

I don't think business owners aren't financially savvy if e.g they would struggle with the extra cost of somebody going on maternity leave. It's the nature of running a small business that you are less able to swallow this kind of cost.

I think the answer is more financial support for small businesses and encouraging men to make full use of paternity leave.

Completely agree with dr spouse.

Apocryphally, people i know who have negotiated flexible or part time work tend to stay where they are because it is difficult to negotiate that kind of contract in a new job.

most companies do not suffer that much from people going on maternity leave when you look at the big picture.

but business owners on this thread, are saying there are significant consequences for their business.

As someone who has had two (very short) periods of maternity leave, I do understand the issues surrounding this. Especially as neither or my children were planned. I am also aware, however, that me being away from the department - even for the 3 months I took off each time, even though I was available by e-mail and phone throughout that time - impacted severely on my senior research fellow (a female) who had to take over my responsibilities. Being absent for those times also meant that I missed out on two major grants and, as those of you in academia know, getting grants and papers are the main aims of the department.

So yes, I fully admit that I think twice about employing women who then might go off for a year as soon as they get the job.

I also cannot allow flexible working as, in my industry, it is not possible to do that.

If that makes me sexist, then fine.

one company employs 1000 people. say 5% are off at any time on ML. this is a constant charge and easy to spread across the business.

Except it doesn't actually happen like this. I work for a company that has expanded from about 100 to 500 people since I joined 12 years ago. Every time there was a recruitment drive, 2 years later there was a baby boom (2 years employment is required before you get the full enhanced maternity package). In my group of 30 people there were 3/8 of the senior staff on maternity leave at the same time last year, all 3 of us had our babies within 3 weeks and we all took a full years maternity leave. It was impossible to recruit experienced staff to replace us (highly specialized technical work) so we recruited more junior staff and gave some more experienced permanent staff the opportunities to expand their roles. We were able to assess the young ones on temporary contracts and some of those have now been offered permanent roles, the more experienced staff had a good development opportunity and some have been promoted, and the 3 of us were all very happy to return to work and none of us are planning to leave any time soon.

windy yes I hope your greedy archaic company goes bust.

but business owners on this thread, are saying there are significant consequences for their business.

I agree that for a small business the impact can be significant and that if you are a small business and happen to employ 3 employees who go on maternity leave one after the other the idea that you might have a long period with no employees on maternity leave isn't much comfort if you have to pay the bills now. I think the government should do more to help small businesses with these costs.

However, unless I have missed something at least one of the small number of business owners who has expressed an opinion is basing his assumptions on the theoretical difficulties of employing a woman, not actual experience of somebody going on maternity (or paternity) leave.

merrymouse assuming you mean me then you have missed something. I've had a number if staff go on ML in the past, sometimes it's been a problem sometimes it hasn't.

Because it's not the done thing, if it is brought up in an interview, it would give HR and the managers coniptions because they'd start panicking about possible discrimination and misunderstanding between them and the interviewee.
Imagine the scene at the end of the interview:
Interviewee: 'In the spirit of openness, my partner and I/husband and I are currently TTC'
Interviewer: 'Uh, ok. Uh, thanks.' o 0 (OH FUCKING HELL HOW DO I RESPOND? IF I SAY GOOD AM I DISCRIMINATING? IF I SAY BAD AM I DISCRIMINATING? WHAT HAPPENS IF SHE DOESN'T GET THE JOB? WILL SHE START A CLAIM FOR DISCRIMINATION. OH FUCKITY FUCK WHY DID YOU SAY THAT, INTERVIEWEE? FUCK I BETTER EMAIL- WAIT NO CALL I DON'T WANT IT WRITTEN DOWN. WAIT NO I'LL BOOK A MEETING ROOM WITH HR SO NO-ONE CAN OVERHEAR US. DO WE HAVE ANY SOUNDPROOF ROOMS? I'D BETTER CLOSE THE BLINDS.)
Interviewee: 'Of course, it could take several months to a year.
Interviewer: 'Thanks.' o 0 (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA)

BTW, my employers seems to be glad when people go on mat leave because they can reduce salary overheads (even the enhanced mat pay isn't full salary at my place) and shift work around so fewer people do more work so the same amount gets done overall. Kerching!

Anyway, why is this an issue unless the job is a temporary one? Seriously, if you work at a place for 5-10 years does it really matter WHEN you go on maternity leave. People need to stop being so short-sighted about women's careers. Maternity leave does not equal game over for lady employees. Bring on equal paternity leave.

Fair enough windy. I'm not going to ask you to detail each and every one of your experiences. Just watch out for all you male employees going on extended paternity leave simultaneously (Am assuming that in the spirit of equal opportunities you are offering a similarly generous package to them).

And if it was me you were referring to then I have seen it from both sides, thank you. And I still stick by my principles.

I think 'principles' is too lofty a term for blatant sexism and discrimination, zeezeek.

Of course the window for men having the right to paternity leave can cover their entire working lives.

In fact, I know nothing about Jeremy Bullmore, but from his picture there is no reason to believe that he wouldn't be planning to go on paternity leave. (I was going to say Nigel Farage was another potential candidate for late fatherhood, but wow, he is only 49! I'd be watching him for at least another 20 years.)

Windy, given that you very clearly stated in your long post at the beginning of this thread that your response to the potential problems of maternity leave was that you only employ men, with your clearly hypothetical 'If I had female staff concerns' how can you possibly have had experience of several people taking maternity leave?

If in fact you have in the past employed women who have had maternity leave and it's not always been a problem, why are you specifically excluding them from your potential workforce?

I don't really see why companies like yours are worrying so, just make it clear at the interview that you expect your employees essentially to give you their lives (in return for large sums of cash as you state) and those that are planning to have families won't touch you with a bargepole because it will be very obvious that the two are not compatible. This applies equally to men and women, so no discrimination problems either.

When I ran a team the biggest issue in recruiting was not will this person be really good but then bugger off for a while to have a baby which will be difficult to manage for a while, but will this person be crap and cause major headaches for everyone. A much more significant and likely problem in my experience. Oh and I know that when flexible working was being introduced way back there was evidence that over the long term good leave and return policies were well worth it even on economic grounds.

Wonder how much paternity leave Hugh Grant 53 could have claimed in the past couple of years had he been an employee?

Nooka - maybe I've had more than 1 job in my life, anyway you don't need to be run over by a bus to know it would hurt.

Yup, assuming that somebody works till they are 70 and that women tend to stop having children at about 45, you'd really be nuts to employ a man. Opening yourself up to a whole world of trouble there.

anyway you don't need to be run over by a bus to know it would hurt.

But it would be pretty inconvenient to stop crossing the road on the off chance that you might be run over by a bus.

if you want to pick up on windy for commenting on ML when he has not had any employees take ML, why are non business owners commenting of the effects on other people's businesses?

surely they have no experience of owning and managing a business so should not comment? (applying the same logic as used above)

It would also be a shame to get run over by a bus because you were looking the wrong way.

Actually YouAreMyFavouriteWasteOfTime just because you don't own a business doesn't mean you haven't ran one. There is even a job title for it... Business Manager. Would you look at that.

but a business manager doesn't own the business - which does change their relationship with it.

But you're saying it's fine to act illegally to further your own financial cause. Would you apply that in any other sphere? As I said earlier, it could benefit me economically to steal something from windy and I'd probably not get caught. Does that make it ok?

surely they have no experience of owning and managing a business so should not comment?

Again they may have experience of managing a business. Physically owning a company doesn't mean you can manage it well.

There are alot of people who own a business but wouldn't know the first thing about actually running it.

Your point is moot but then I'm not sure why that surprises me given the past discussion on this thread.