To think maternity leave should be capped at 6 months to protect small businesses?

[YourOpalLeader]

Hear me out before throwing things! I work for a small business, and every time someone goes on maternity leave, it causes massive disruption. Hiring temps who don’t know the role, training them, juggling workloads - it can’t always be absorbed. I completely understand that maternity leave is a right but should it really be up to 12 months? For SMEs, it’s almost impossible. AIBU to think six months should be the limit, with the rest unpaid or taken as shared parental leave?

Sometimes it takes a long time to recover from a birth.

Isn't hiring cover for 12 months less disruptive than hiring someone for 6 months? The training to knowing what they're doing ratio is much better.

YABU, but there should be more in place to support small businesses somehow. I don’t know how if your issue is that having a temp is difficult though. But no, absolutely no way mat leave should be cut to 6 months and also, how can you enforce shared parental leave? Some people don’t have partners or don’t have partners that can take 6 months out of their job etc. (Just like some women can’t or don’t want r either). Also stat mat pay is only 39 weeks not the full year anyway.

You know you're posting this on MUMSnet, right?

Well you could stop employing women of child bearing age?

<light hearted comment >

Neither of my babies were sleeping well by 6 months so I'd have been useless at my job and would have probably ended up screwing up your business.

Yes, of course you’re being unreasonable. 🙄

Statutory maternity pay is

• 90% of your average weekly earnings (before tax) for the first 6 weeks
• £184.03 or 90% of your average weekly earnings (whichever is lower) for the next 33 weeks

The rest of maternity leave is indeed unpaid.

Then for most businesses they can claim back 92% of that (potentially 103% if your business qualifies for Small Employers’ Relief).

So your big improvement would be paying nothing between week 26 and week 39, so 13 weeks of paying out a total of £2392.39, of which £2201 will be refunded, saving a grand total of £191.39?

No way, from the point of view of a manager! My team member in India has just gone on 6 months maternity leave. Recruiting 6 months cover is impossible, I'm having to make do with a really under qualified temp based in the UK. Whereas we just recruited a superb 12 month maternity cover for one of our UK based team. I'd much rather the stability of 12 months for a temporary person.

Sure, if small businesses aren't interested in employing women aged 20-45. I wouldn't work for you.

You work for a small business or you own one?
If you work for one, not your problem (and you will be glad of the time if you ever need it).
If you own one, well that’s just something you need to factor in.
It’s hard enough going back after 9 or 12 months with a baby that wakes through the night, breastfeeding and all the rest of it. And we do need people to have babies to pay taxes and look after us when we’re old. So why make it harder than it already is?

Exactly. OP, try employing people in their late 40s, 50s and 60s.

We have decades of experience, professionalism and are most unlikely to have more babies.

That’s a fair point - longer cover can allow for more continuity if the temp is good and stays the full 12 months. But in my experience, especially in smaller teams, the problem isn’t just the length - it’s that the temp rarely has the same level of investment, experience, or adaptability. Even after training, things often fall through the cracks, and the pressure lands on the rest of the team regardless.

For SMEs running on tight margins with little overlap in roles, even a well-trained temp isn’t a perfect fix - and the longer someone’s away, the more disconnected they often feel when they return, which adds another challenge.

I’m not anti-maternity leave at all - I just wonder if we’ve reached a point where the length of leave might need to be more flexible depending on business size and capacity.

Thanks - I totally agree that not everyone has the option of shared parental leave and I’m not suggesting it should be enforced, just that more flexibility in how leave is structured could help both parents and small businesses.

I also get that stat maternity pay only covers 39 weeks but people are still entitled to take the full year off, and in a very small team, being down a key person for that long can seriously destabilise things, especially if others are already stretched.

My issue isn’t with people taking the leave they’re entitled to - it’s with how little structural support exists for businesses expected to absorb the impact. I don’t have a perfect solution (and I know 6 months would feel unfair to many), but it feels like the conversation always stops at ‘it’s the law,’ rather than looking at how it affects everyone involved.

I do and I actually think MN is the perfect place to talk about this. Who better to weigh in on how maternity leave works in practice - and how it affects everyone - than the people who’ve taken it, managed around it, or juggled both?

I’m not here to bash maternity leave - I’m here to ask if the current system works for everyone it impacts, including small businesses. If there’s no space for nuance on here, where is there?

But you’ll still have the same problem of needing to hire and train someone, so they might aswell be on a 12 month contract rather than 6 month.

Sure, but as you are starting to identify, smaller businesses need more help to absorb the costs.

That doesn't mean those costs should be cut by forcing women back to work earlier. That's so regressive.

Surely 12 months is much easier for recruitment? Who wants a 6 month post ?

@YourOpalLeader you ask AIBU to think six months should be the limit, with the rest unpaid or taken as shared parental leave?

A great many employers only provide statutory maternity pay and employers can recoup 92% of that cost via HMRC.

So the total amount that employer would save under your system is about £190 over the remaining 13 weeks of statutory maternity pay.

Do you really want to force women back to work and young babies into childcare to save £190?

You're advocating the rest being shared parental leave...
So I take it you'd be happy for all your male employees to take up to 6 months then? Surely having 100% of your workforce with kids being off for chunks of about 6 months is just as disruptive as women taking year.

Haha, honestly, I think some small business owners probably do quietly think like that, which is exactly the problem.

It shouldn’t come down to avoiding hiring women - it should be about having better systems in place to support everyone, so small businesses aren’t stuck between doing the right thing and barely surviving.

Mine weren’t sleeping any better at 12 months 😂

Also @YourOpalLeader I would be interested in hearing your personal experience?

Were you completely physically recovered after your births by 6 months?
Did you breastfeed - how did you cope with that when you returned to work?
How did you find weaning onto food at 6 months whilst juggling your job?
Was your baby sleeping well at that age?

And woman who are breastfeeding very small babies who have only just started to wean? What are they supposed to do? Where are all the childcare places available to care for these very small immobile babies, many of whom are still dependant on their mother for nutrition? Not to mention the emotional and possible physical impact of going back to work six months after giving birth. I know some women do it, whether out of choice or necessity, but to suggest it should be the norm is ludicrous for all involved.

Best avoid hiring men of any age because they could be off on paternity leave any old time.