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.

How many women take the full year? Because I'm the earner in my family (DH is SAHP) I take 18 weeks as that is when I drop to SMP only with my work's maternity package.

I've now been sterilised, should I be putting that on my CV so that employers don't discriminate against me? One of my friends is infertile, should she also mention this?

It would be great to see more father's using their 6-months. A friend did that and it worked really well for them and might help break down some of this discrimination.

As an interesting aside, my work gives the same package to adoptive parents as the maternity package, irrespective of gender. So they could employ a man who adopts and he could be off for a number of months, needing to be covered and still being paid.

Matsikula - good point about the new regulations, it should even things up but the take up rate amongst men will be critical to whether it makes a real difference or not

As for having to offer decent maternity pay, our HR agency advised us that if it was disproportional to the level of other benefits it could land us in hot water as being deliberately anti equal-opportunities.

Back in the good old days (pre Lehman Bros crisis) everyone knew that women with thoughts about having babies would try to get a job at Merrill Lynch as they had the best benefits on the street.

If a company are going to go bankrupt on one woman going on maternity leave let's face it, their business was going down the pan anyway

or they are just starting to expand.

I've seen a small fledgling business go kaput because of an undisclosed pregnancy when applying for a job. Paying her and paying the agency staff, oh well, so long as it's legal who cares?

Employers can claim back the SMP they pay. They are entitled to claim back at least 92%. Small employer can actually claims back all the SMP plus some compensation.

Companies with an annual liability for National Insurance contributions of£45,000 or less are entitled to claim back 100% of the SMP plus 4.5% additional as compensation for the NI contributions paid on the SMP.

If you happen to be a larger company and can only claim up to the 92% and that 8% is going to break the business it is already in a poor financial position and will not survive.

I would like to point out the SMP that can be claimed back goes by the governments figures for SMP. Anything paid over and above is on the companies shoulders as it is a benefit they have included within their contract.

Any employer with the tiniest amount of HR knowledge knows how to safeguard themselves against these situations. If you don't know the basics of HR it surprises me they thought they could run a business in the first place.

MeepMeep - I'd be looking at costs in the low hundreds of thousands to manage someone having maternity leave all things considered. That's a hell of a lot of money for a small business to find.

In addition it would impact on our clients and the rest of the team, further jeopardising the business. Saying a business would have to be going down the pan anyway shows an awful ignorance of real life.

I'm guessing you don't run your own company?

Meepmeep "Any employer with the tiniest amount of HR knowledge knows how to safeguard themselves against these situations."

Yup, we employ men.

I stick with my old job trying to concieve for over 1.5 years. I had two miscarriages in that time. I was redundant in dec and started a new job now. Just found out I'm 7 weeks pregnant again. Yes I do feel guilty about it but that it is life. I might very well go on to have yet another miscarriage.

Not everyone gets pregnant and not have miscarriages anytime they want. That woman asking for advice might well end up waiting for another 3 years.

I don't think Jeremy understands.

It gets worse if you are older. I'm 39 and with the unstable job market, if we all wait for a year at a new job, we might never have a baby.

Honestly, Windy, I'm shocked at how blatant you are. Are you morally bankrupt in other ways too?

What a depressing thread this is.

Why don't we just stop bothering to educate girls in the first place....there only going to end up having babies.

The sooner shared parental leave becomes the norm the better..

They're

So a 30-ish woman working for the BBC wants to have children, hates her job & has relocated to a part of the UK where similar employment opportunities are not on the doorstep.
Apart from the fact that I missed whether she was married or in a stable relationship, she could:
Set up her own company
Apply to regional tv companies
Apply for promotion
Go freelance as a consultant

I really don't see any issues.
It has been "illegal" since 1976 to ask women the babies/ children question at interview.

I know loulou, very depressing.

OF COURSE it's easier to just bypass women and the pregnancy thing. That's entirely why the laws were brought in to stop people behaving outrageously unfairly, as per Windy's company.

Do we always just act in total self-interest and avoid our responsibilities to do the decent thing? Of course not.

Thank god more enlightened companies exist for us 'breeders'.

Windy

I have headed the HR and Finance divisions of two new start companies. One of which now employs 50+ and the other 10. Both are thriving in what has been a difficult financial time for country. And guess what, we have employed majority women because throughout the interview process they were the stronger candidates.

To say that you employ men so blatantly proves your complete lack of business acumen. The fact you disregard Employment Equality Law so flippantly is hugely ignorant and opens you up to a multitude of discrimination claims. You do know that a candidate for interview can sue for discrimination without having actually been employed by the company?

Not to mention that your "men" can now take a % of their partners maternity leave so you are opening yourself up to financial problems there also.

It is employers like you that encourage a discrimination against women in the work place. Something which in this day and age should no longer exist. Well done Windy you have not only proved yourself to have corrupt policies within your business but also a complete lack of moral fibre.

Windy, how about changing the workplace ethos so that people don't have to be there 12 hours a day?

For those who agree this is 'reprehensible', can you tell me what you'd do in my situation?

I've been trying, on and off, for quite some time. I applied for jobs two years ago and as it happens I thought I might be pregnant when I put the application in. No baby.

Because of what I do, I can expect to apply for a new job roughly every two-three years for the next 6-10 years. Since I have been thinking about having children for nearly five years, that is fifteen years of my life when I may or may not be about to have a baby and about to apply for a new job.

I think people who imagine not advertising your family planning is 'reprehensible' are those who imagine all women get knocked up just for the asking, that all pregnancies continue to term, and that no careers involve rapid movement from one job to another. It's not realistic.

Oh, and in my career, men outnumber women in the top jobs at a ratio of five to one. What a surprise.

DontOutMe

I was 14 weeks pregnant when I accepted a job. I didn't tell my work prior to accepting the job because I wasn't legally obliged to do so. The business owner was amazing, I got promoted prior to going on maternity leave. He has since opened a new business as I have moved across to the new business on a higher salary with greater perks.

Plan your family, your work can and will wait.

OHs friend works in a very specialised area and searched for a year for a properly experienced and trained technician, very precise tolerances etc. the best person for the job was a woman, she took the job and then told him she was three months pregnant. He was so upset, he'd been generous with salary and working hours, and she seemed delighted too. He basically ran the business himself for a year before finding someone else, and it nearly went under due to him paying whatever it was contribution and being on his own. She never came back after maternity leave either. He did eventually get someone else but I think particularly in small businesses, more help should be given or more honesty shown. Fair, legal, what is, what isn't is so difficult but I do feel people who do this are being disingenuous. It's not so different to taking a job then saying you've had a hip replacement booked for two years and then taking sick pay, when you know in advance.

I've recently resigned as I've had so many medical problems I don't think it's fair to expect my work to keep having to find short term/ unknown term cover, and pay sick pay (I had cancer then numerous other niggly issues).

DontOutMe see my post above. I agree with you anyone who think this is reprehensible probably doesn't have fertility problems. You can't put your life on hold because you want to try for a baby. It might not happen for a very long while. And not everyone has a very stable job.

Keep working and keep trying for the baby.

Shonajoy

I think what you fail to acknowledge is that unemployment isn't an option for alot of people when pregnant.

The company I worked for closed it Scotland office when I was 12 weeks pregnant. I was at the time with my ExH who got sacked while I was pregnant, refused to get another job and went into a downward spiral of alcoholism and drug abuse. I was pregnant, had suffered a missed miscarriage previously and had no choice but to find work. You may find it dishonest but in many cases it is a case of survival.

As I said in an above post an employer is not obliged to provide maternity pay unless you have been employed a minimum of 26 weeks by the end of the qualifying week (i.e. by the end of the 15th week before the week the baby is due). This is true for all businesses unless it is written into the contract differently. And further more they can claim back the costs of maternity pay and in alot of small businesses cases they can claim more than the cost of the maternity pay.

To run any business where you employ staff you should make sure you are aware of all of these things. If you don't know them then really you shouldn't run a business because you don't know how to run it efficiently and effectively.

I can't be not working either. I am 7 weeks now and am slightly less than 2 months at my new work. I was made redundant at my last one. I don't know if this will stick as I had 2 miscarriages last year already. One at 12 weeks. I can't just quit my job like this. I very much I can afford to stay at home with my feet up instead of trying to do my best with this dreadful morning sickness and tiredness. I am commuting 2 hours a day too. I really don't wish to do it but many of us don't have the luxury with choice. I plan to tell work after the 20 week scan because that was what I did last time. After the quadruple blood test. I am high risk for downs since I'm old and I will abort if the foetus is found to have problems. If they let me go after I told them I just have think of this as having a 6 month contract :(

I really hadn't intended to upset anyone or be confrontational, I just wanted to get across the very real concerns that small business owners like me have.

It's not about being sexist, hating women or anything like that, it's purely economic.

If employing one sex can potentially (so not always but sometimes) cost a lot more and put the business at risk it leaves small businesses with little choice.

In a large company the argument goes away and I agree it would be morally wrong and poor business sense not to recruit women.

I'm still going to get flamed though I feel.

Thanks meep and onelittle.

I had seen others saying the same about fertility. I think it's just potentially so much longer than people realize that you might be in this situation.

windy, sorry, but I think that is selfish. You don't care about bigger businesses - but you do care about you. I'm sure the argument could be made that bigger businesses suffer too.

You chose to get involved running a small business. No-one ever talks about that choice, only about women 'choosing' to get pregnant. You must have known you would have moral obligations, not to mention being (IMO) in a very shady position when they law is clearly trying to stop the discrimination you want to practise.

What's selfish? It clearly isn't as much of a problem for bigger companies as it is for small ones, that's pretty simple given their economies of scale. Anyway, shouldn't my investors and staff expect me to put the companies interests first?

In a previous life I was running a trading desk with 12 sales people on it. When someone went on maternity leave for a year they were obviously missed but the work could be spread out quite easily among the rest while we were training up the cover (who we could poach from another desk) making it all fairly simple. When they returned it wasn't a big problem as there were always jobs about so shuffling roles to take someone back part time or on reduced hours wasn't an issue.

Today if I had a salesperson go on maternity leave that's 50% of the team gone, the burden on the one remaining while we're finding and training cover is immense and ultimately can damage the business. Accommodating them when they return if they're unable to do the same work as before will be equally tough.

Forgetting about gender, if two equally qualified, capable and experienced people applied for a job and one of them came with the risk of a bill for £100k+ at some point in the future and potential damage to the company what's the responsible thing to do?

It's economics, nothing to do with owning a uterus.