Will someone employ

[yellowmellw]

If I'm pregnant. Currently 7 weeks pregnant.

Do I state on application in pregnancy or wait for an interview and would this affect my chances.

No but added to the rest, at the exact time we had stretched ourselves to secure a new contract, which was explained to her during the interview was a huge problem.

Plus it had the added effect of my business partner opting not to employ any women of child baring age in her other companies.

No but added to the rest, at the exact time we had stretched ourselves to secure a new contract, which was explained to her during the interview was a huge problem.

I'd say that risks you were taking with the business were not her problem. Presumably she did tell you when she was legally obliged to.

my business partner opting not to employ any women of child baring age in her other companies

Then I'd class her as one of ready's 'discriminatory arseholes'.

We weren’t taking risks. We employed someone so the company could fulfill a contract. This was explained during the interviews. She was asked if there would be any problems during the timeframe. We also stipulated that because of the timeframe that holidays of over 2 weeks in length would not be authorised for the first 3 months of employment so she knew how important it was.

Absolutely I think it’s discriminatory but I also understand not wanting another failed business. I don’t really think that people who shout about discrimination understand the current climate for small businesses

We weren’t taking risks. We employed someone so the company could fulfill a contract. This was explained during the interviews. She was asked if there would be any problems during the timeframe.

And then you replaced here without having any major obligations from a maternity point of view.

No one is obliged to stay with you to fulfill a specific contract. Anyone can quit, given agreed notice. What would you have done if the employee in question had simply quit?

Equally no one can guarantee no sickness absences in three months.

I think you need to look at your own internal issues here.

And I already said that she was under no obligations. I’m merely explaining the impact it had for us.

The thing is that the logical conclusion of those saying it is bad is that women cannot realistically progress in the years in which they are starting a family. Of course it’s frustrating for an employer (especially a small employer) for someone to start and quickly go off on maternity leave but what if OP wasn’t pregnant yet? What if she was trying, and found out just after she had accepted the job - what’s the difference to the employer (except 2-3 weeks?) And if that is a problem, then it stifles women’s career opportunities at any time they might be trying to start a family which for some women can take many months if not years.

What it boils down to is men can have children without having to worry about this kind of shit in the workplace.

I'm currently 17 weeks pregnant and started my new job 17 weeks ago and I'm terrified to tell them in case they get rid of me

We were trying but for a long while, had been diagnosed with unexplained infertility and were waiting for IVF so I never believed for a second that it'd happen on the one cycle that would screw me over (I'll only get maternity allowance instead of SMP by literally days)

I just hope they don't sack me when I can't hide it anymore as no-one else will employ me and I'm scared I'll lose my house

Being a woman sucks sometimes!

If you need an income then you don't really have a choice but to keep quiet because there's very few people who would choose to hire a pregnant woman sadly

Women of childbearing age are also entitled to earn a living, build careers and move jobs when they want to

Such a selfish statement. One individuals rights trampling on the business owner, manager and all existing workers.

What about the rights of the business and it’s owners to make a living. Owning or running a business is hugely stressful and risk. How about the rights of the other employees? May have waited forever to make the decision to bring someone else onboard to help with workload

And as for building a career, you can forget it - by deliberately hiding pregnancy which is exactly what the op is asking about doing, you’re not going to be building anything apart from a reputation as dishonest

There you go again with entitled. This attitude of hide it, pretend you didn’t know, then use legislation, is highly damaging to female equality in the workplace. No one benefits from this apart from op, lots of people carry the burden

Utter selfishness and you have the nerve to masquerade it as feminism when it puts back the female cause.

The hiring manager and anyone else involved in this situation would be put off women of child bearing age for life. You’d most likely be a figure of derision and ridicule in the office and be managed out at the very earliest opportunity

Op don’t do it it is morally reprehensible

If I go for a large retailer then I hopefully won't be putting any small companies out of business.

Oh, I see, one of those. Might as well steal all the baby stuff from them too then, it’s only a large company. Retail is doing brilliantly at the moment as you can see in the news, so that changes things completely

Wow samantha.

You do realise that impact on the business you describe also applies to a long term employee getting pregnant? Or someone going off sick?

Oh please Samantha. You sound deranged.

The truth is that the workplace isn't set up for women (and we only make up, what, 50% of the population) and only recently has had to take their needs into consideration. It's time we stopped viewing women procreating and having children as some kind of enormous hassle and accommodate it as a fact of life.

What's the OP (who needs to earn a living) to do? You'd probably be the first to complain about her claiming benefits.

I think (hope) Samantha is merely trying to get a reaction.

It actually to varying extents gets even worse for women with children. I used to work with a woman whose toddler was at nursery - unfortunately for her, her child seemed to catch every bug going so often times she'd have to take leave at short notice or leave the office when nursery called. She was slowly etched out of team meetings and slowly etched out of key tasks. It was insidious and you could tell it was knocking her confidence as she didn't feel like she was 'part of the team'. A couple of people on the project she was working on were promoted to Account Managers as they'd demonstrated a portfolio activities they'd taken charge of. The woman didn't get that opportunity- even though she is just as good as anyone else on the team.

It's a rather unpalatable truism but that's state we are in. Organisations are indeed taking steps towards flexible working and policies to protect and maintain women in their careers but if management want someone to present a pitch to a client then chances are they're going to task that to someone who will most likely get the job done without minimal disruption.

*with minimal disruption

There’s a difference between an existing employee going off pregnant, and a new employee deliberately misleading a future employer about their pregnancy

If you can’t see why, ask why the op came on and asked if it was ok to mislead the future employer

As for the example about the person being gradually excluded as they kept having to leave work due to an ill toddler. Apparently this was unfair as they were just as capable as the other employees. Well actually they weren’t, as the other employees were able to carry out their job function a lot more efficiently

Truth is, female equality has come a long way in the work place but biology makes it impossible for complete equality to ever be achieved and it’s deluded to think otherwise

Want to be treated equally? Get your partner to look after the child and work the same hours as the other employees

It isn’t the role of private businesses to facilitate lifestyle choices of employees

There is indeed a difference Samantha in that it will cost the business more for the longer term employer to go off as they’ll have accrued the right to maternity pay.

Not to be a jinx but it is very early days op. I wouldn't say

It isn’t the role of private businesses to facilitate lifestyle choices of employees

Actually, I don't see any logical reason why we've decided to prioritise business interests over work/family balance.

Other countries (for example Scandinavia) who have protected worker and family rights by law have both better productivity than the UK and more equality in the workplace.

There is indeed a difference Samantha in that it will cost the business more for the longer term employer to go off as they’ll have accrued the right to maternity pay.

They’ll have earned that right and earned the respect of their coworkers rather than deceiving them from the start

Wooly wishes about Scandinavia are utterly irrelevant, go live there if you like most of it is a racist shithole in my (extensive) experience

Not all employers discriminate!

I have actively recruited females with one baby already with the knowledge they may have another 1 or 2 or more! They were the best people for the job. I would not decline them for someone more inferior just because they may have a baby in the future!

Look after your staff, support them and they'll stay because they're happy. The risk of staff turnover is costly, too!

Go for it, OP - if you're the best you should get the job!

I was recruited while pregnant. I concealed it in the early interviews and revealed it/couldn't hide it in the latter stage negotiations on salary and timing. I joined after mat leave so they didn't have to pay out for that but clearly it was fairly likely that I would go on to have a second (although I didn't).

In the time that I've been there, they've paid me approx 450k. I've brought in work of more than 1.5m. So they weren't really doing me a favour by hiring the pregnant woman, although that seems to be what is expected from pretty much every pregnancy job search discussion I have seen or heard.

I'm not sure what kind of work you're after (though I saw you mention retail) but I was working, through an agency, as a learning support assistant in a primary school when I found out I was pregnant. The student I worked with could be quite violent so I decided it was safest to leave the role. I told everyone I was pregnant, and told the agency to make it very clear when looking for new work for me, so that I didn't end up working in another possibly unsafe role. I spent about a month doing bits of cover work work, then got a new full time role that lasted until the summer holidays. By that point I'd worked just enough to be entitled to maternity pay from the agency, and my contract finished around the same time my entitlement to income support started. That tided me over until I gave birth, at which point I received my maternity pay instead. It was tight but it paid the bills, no one cared I was pregnant, and it definitely didn't stop me finding work. So that might be an avenue to consider if you think you could do that work. If you think it'd be better to hide the pregnancy (which I think is very reasonable at only 7 weeks TBH) I wouldn't feel bad about it - not in your circumstances! Principles are great and everything, but not if you literally have to starve for them!