New recruit pregnant before job starting

[FlimFlamJimJams]

I've started a new business, it'll open to the public around April time.
It's a very small, community focused business with only 4 staff members initially.
I recruited all the staff within the last few weeks and are finalising contracts. Everyone has formal job offers, no one yet has a job contract.

The roles require training on the job resulting in a nationally recognised qualification, probably achieved within 12 months or so. The business is paying for this.

I have had meetings with everyone individually this week to go through bits and bobs, start dates etc - and at the end of a meeting with one lady yesterday, she tells me that she's 12 weeks pregnant and anticipates starting her Maternity leave around mid-July. She said she found out at 5 weeks - so she'd have known she was pregnant at interview.

I'm now stuck in a difficult position - the business is already going to struggle financially for the first few years (it's not quite a non-profit, but it's close) and I'm now facing having to extend someone's training at least 6 months past everyone else's as well as find temporary cover, which is expensive. She may well choose not to return after her maternity. I turned down other applicants who applied after her job offer was made.

I guess there isn't a AIBU, because I'm not going to do anything, but I feel really deceived and a bit stressed about the whole thing.
I know everyone is entitled to get pregnant etc. But I wasn't anticipating someone going on ML before they'd even qualified, or finished their probation.

Have you read all my posts?

Yes.
You need to make sure that all employees are able to finish the training in good time. So...
And god forbid another woman in the team gets pregnant, which could easily happen.
How will the business cope with it? You need to plan for it now.

You say you can legally retract the offer, then do so.

@DroopyClematis your example is ridiculous, once someone is pregnant and starts a role they don’t get paid maternity pay by the company, they get paid it by the government. So apart from a very small recruitment fee that the chimney sweep would incur, there is no additional cost to the business

What happens if one of the people quits whilst half way through training? Or leaves shortly after because they don’t like the job? You’re going to have to pay for someone else to do the training anyway. Being pregnant isn’t a crime, and she’s done nothing wrong.

Hey OP, I’m a mum of 2 and have a career so am all for women in the workplace. However I genuinely feel for you and the other recruits because of this ML situation. I don’t have anything to add to all the good and sensible advice shared (ignore the usual MUMSNET bile), I just get your frustration. Best wishes to you and your new venture.

Say you were a chimney sweep. You find, due to a sudden resurgence of chimneys being opened up ( a real analogy!) that you e got too many customers. You decide to expand. You advertise.
You interview.
You select a candidate.
Then you get told that the candidate is pregnant.

You can't afford to cover mat leave.

Is it really fair?

Why wouldn't you be able to afford to cover maternity leave? Surely you can either afford to hire someone, or you can't. Someone who is already pregnant will usually qualify for maternity allowance, so there's not even any admin for the business, and if you do have to pay maternity pay then you can reclaim it (and small businesses can often claim a small percentage on top to cover the cost of admin) from HMRC.

Can I suggest to you @FlimFlamJimJams that at some point if the business takes off, you'll have to have another contract with the training provider (if this is indeed about the training issue) for future employees and extending the contract for this pregnant employee wouldn't be a factor then, you'd just have a contract with a training provider and all training must be completed to an industry standard. You put a deadline of 12m - 14m on the training for the initial employees.

The only thing that might possibly work in your favour in order to release this employee is that only she was aware at the time of the interview of the requirement to complete the training in the allocated timeframe while you weren't, so she possibly shouldn't have accepted the position due to the training requirements....perhaps??????

Take the pregnancy piece out of the equation and it's down to the fact that there is a requirement set by the employer to have the required training completed (not delayed or postponed but actually completed) within a certain time frame and she isn't going to be able to adhere to that requirement.
She could always be on the top of a very very short list of potential candidates in a few years time if she decided to re-apply.

If this news is that bad for the business then the business isn’t sustainable.

@Maryjane3227

I work with someone who had had 3 pregnancies/babies in the last 5 years. The impact on my work place's finance and other staff is immense. This person is now pregnant again. She never fully commits, sees plans through, or has the insight that comes from sticking with projects long term. She is incompetent at times. She is totally protected by law. I have no sympathy with Boris Johnson, whom I consider an imposter. I think of this colleague as one too. The rights of everyone need to be balanced, not just the desires of one individual who desires to have children. Colleagues who don't have children feel especially pissed off and I don't blame them. If I ran my own business, I'd be annoyed too. There is an element of self interest and game playing here or playing the system. If "the system" was all powerful and money was no object, this strategic financial survival would be fine. But "the system" being played is fellow human beings. So yeah, you can do this and get away with it, but you clearly know there's a cost to others.

Women are only protected during pregnancy. I’m sure if she were actually underperforming her manager would have sacked her the second she returned after the baby, but they didn’t. So she must be doing her job as well as you despite not having ‘long term insight’

@mydogisthebest

I would not want her working for me. Deceitful is an understatement.

She was not deceitful. She was within her rights to keep that information. It's protected by law in countries that try to fight misogyny in the workplace.

If you want to run a successful business then you need to do what is best for the business.

If you hamstring yourself with all these niceties and British rules and fairness or whatever, then you run the risk of running your business into the ground. Then you won't be employing anyone at all, and ALL your employees will be worse off, not just 1 out of 4.

So you need to toughen up and think a bit bigger, or pay the price for not doing so. If it is in fact true that you are not in the UK...

What country is this?

Or is it a mystery as its so "outing"? 🤔

@Viviennemary

Tell her the offer is now withdrawn. And deal with the Consequences if any. That is what I would do.

It would cost the business a fortune in legal costs and compensation at the tribunal

Women who start work already pregnant are already at a disadvantage in terms of maternity pay from their employers. (although it is fair for the employers)
Some people here seem to think that pregnant women should be prevented from finding employment.

@Haffiana

If you want to run a successful business then you need to do what is best for the business.

If you hamstring yourself with all these niceties and British rules and fairness or whatever, then you run the risk of running your business into the ground. Then you won't be employing anyone at all, and ALL your employees will be worse off, not just 1 out of 4.

So you need to toughen up and think a bit bigger, or pay the price for not doing so. If it is in fact true that you are not in the UK...

If you want to run a successful business you acknowledge that there are legalities in place and abide by those

Christ some of these comments are infuriating

I can really see both sides of this and the OP is clearly in a difficult position. On the one hand, women absolutely shouldn’t be discriminated against just because they are pregnant. She obviously didn’t know if she would get the job when applying and I think has actually been quite transparent, telling you as quickly as she has.

On the other hand, it is a challenge for the business and while I think it would absolutely be wrong to rescind the offer, I don’t blame you for feeling a bit put out and anxious.

The advice around engaging your employee in the problem-solving process is a really good one, as is potentially exploring options for her to possibly continue training during maternity - there might be some creative solutions to mitigate the impact.

Also try to see beyond the six months (difficult in a small business, I know). You’ve responded with grace to the situation and it seems like you’re creating a really positive work environment - that’s what retains people. Yes, in the short-term it’s a challenge, but you may end up with a loyal employee for years to come. And even if not, your other employees see the human-centred approach you’re taking and that means something.

Rescinding the offer, like some suggest, would likely shade your other employees’ perception of you and the business. Worth thinking about

The OP seems ok with it but, back at the ranch, the more women pull this trick, the less good it will do other women.

There are more ways of skinning a rat than one and employers will simply not offer jobs to women of child bearing age. They can give any reason they like-such as interviewed badly on the day- or no reason and some already do this. That is not illegal.

Is that fair? No, it's not but it is understandable and a lot of it it is down to women who pull these stunts.

Instead of cheering them on, we should be looking at how they affect the rest of us because that is pretty sobering.

I'm expecting to get slated for this but this sort of things unfortunately puts some employers off of taking on women!

She should have been honest at the initial interview!

If you are a small business it's not easy for you!

the more women pull this trick

It's not a "trick", FFS.

@unim

If she's the best person for the job, then she's still the best person for the job even if she has to take maternity leave.

Why would you prefer to hire somebody who wasn't as good as her, just because she's pregnant?

Because they’d actually BE THERE!

@TameDucksAtChatsworth

The OP seems ok with it but, back at the ranch, the more women pull this trick, the less good it will do other women.

There are more ways of skinning a rat than one and employers will simply not offer jobs to women of child bearing age. They can give any reason they like-such as interviewed badly on the day- or no reason and some already do this. That is not illegal.

Is that fair? No, it's not but it is understandable and a lot of it it is down to women who pull these stunts.

Instead of cheering them on, we should be looking at how they affect the rest of us because that is pretty sobering.

“Pull this stunt” - you mean “getting pregnant like half the population needs to do to keep the population going”?

@FlimFlamJimJams

Whilst the business is not in the UK, I'm British so I'm following as many UK laws as I can simply because they seem fairer in the majority of cases than the local laws. For example, I'm paying above a living wage in a country that actually has no minimum wage - a lot of business around here pay the equivalent of £5 an hour.

I'm sorry if people feel like I've wasted their time, but I'm more processing emotionally anyway. As PP have said, if I were in the UK the law is very clear - I cannot withdraw the offer. So I figured any advice would reflect that.

In that case, follow the laws of the country you are in

And yes what TameDucks said. This impacts on all of us, her protected status and subsequent effect on the small business who have to cover her makes other businesses less likely to hire women. She’s not blazing a trail, she’s the reason some employers won’t take on women!

I would be much more harsh than you are being Op.

You are training a batch of new recruits. She now can’t complete that round of training as planned. So she will need to wait until you have another round of training - which could be several years - and in the interim, you could perhaps allocate tasks to her from across the whole team that don’t require the training/qualification. Next time you have a batch of at least, say, three people ready to train she can attend. But paying thousands just to train her beyond the planned timescale makes little business sense unless she literally can’t do any useful tasks without it.

Clearly she know training was part of the plan and that you are a small company. You can’t reasonably be expected to accommodate her training after her maternity leave until you have two others to train, which will be when you have staff turnover or you expand the business.

Nothing unreasonable about that.

and employers will simply not offer jobs to women of child bearing age

They already don't. Do you know why? Because women of child bearing age can get pregnant at any time. Usually a few months after getting a stable enough job.
Being already pregnant when starting a new job is the least of the employers' worries.

The problem is that few men use shared parental leave. That is how you level the field.
Now, imagine berating a men for not disclosing that his partner is pregnant when taking up a job, only to find out that the bastard had intended all along to take shared parental leave.