To have done a job interview at 20 weeks pregnant and not disclosed

[Kinekia]

I’m 25 weeks pregnant.

My original manager knew from 6 weeks in January as HG (severe morning sickness) kicked in at 6 weeks and I ended up on the sick for 2 months. After 2 months I returned as I’d found a medication protocol that allowed
me to get back to normality. I worked in an entry level customer service role. They have dozens of staff so my pregnancy didn’t really affect the team that much.

An internal role came up within the business in March. It would essentially be a promotion. Pay rise, more responsibilities (but generally nicer hours and less front-line customer contact, which is a huge bonus), no weekends, smaller team. I applied expecting nothing to come of it. I surprisingly got invited for an interview in April. I was 20 weeks when I interviewed. I had pondered over whether to disclose the pregnancy at the interview. This internal department is in a different part of the building to where I worked so they don’t know me at all. And my line manager at the time confirmed they wouldn’t tell them about the pregnancy and that it was up to me when I disclose. This job role that had come up was something I’ve desired to get into ever since joining the company, and I really wanted to give it my best shot, so I decided not to disclose, as was my legal right.

I interviewed at 20 weeks in April and felt I hid the bump well. We clicked really well at interview and they really liked me. They asked about pre-booked holidays etc. they then asked “Is there anything else we need to know about?” and I cheerfully said “no”. I felt awful about this at the time but on the other hand, as I said, I wanted them to review me as a candidate fairly without just being seen as “the pregnant candidate”.

Middle of May I got offered the role and accepted. The call where they offered the role was very rushed as they were snowed under, and I didn’t get chance to disclose the pregnancy as she said “Right I’ll be in touch when I’ve got a start date I need to go now, take care!” and abruptly hung up.

The next day (my final day before 17 days of annual leave) I messaged the new manager asking if she had time for a call and she never replied. I wanted to disclose the pregnancy then. I then went on the pre-booked
holiday and still didn’t have a start date.

Came back from my holiday and returned to work 26th May after the bank holiday and went to sit in my usual part of the office and got pulled away by my new manager, taken to their department and told I’m starting straight away. By this point I’m 25 weeks so I had to tell them. It was all quite rushed and they’ve been off with me ever since. Nobody has said anything but they aren’t friendly with me like they have been prior and at one point I was asked why I hadn’t disclosed at interview. They exclude me from friendly chat and I have to ask them what they want me to be doing with my time and my training.

I do feel awful for inconveniencing them but I don’t think I did anything wrong by not disclosing at interview. I had intended to tell them earlier than when I did but I just never got the right moment. I thought we’d have a time to sit down together and go through contracts etc and I would’ve mentioned it then but this never happened.

I have seen there is another woman on the team who is pregnant and due to go on leave so I suspect they had intended me to take over from her and that is why they are pissed off. They hadn’t told me this at interview though. Ironically I’m actually due before this other woman so I can see why they are fuming but legally I’ve not done anything wrong. It does prove that if I’d have disclosed at interview they probably would’ve not hired me and would’ve made up a non-pregnancy related reason to justify it.

Am I am awful employee? I’m concerned that my relationship with my managers will never recover from this and it’s a shame as I really have a huge interest in this role and have every intention of going back full-time after mat leave.

You’ve never run a business have you? Do you think all businesses spring into being multi nationals, with thousands of employees, overnight? Or do most start small, from the ground up, with a few employees? That isn’t a “rubbish” business model, it’s how businesses grow. And if EVERY business has to factor in the costs of employing someone like op, doing what she did? We’d all be paying an awful lot more, for everything we buy. But don’t let that get in the way of your misplaced ire.

I wouldn’t lose 5 minutes of sleep over this. Do what you can to train up as quickly as possible, delay mat leave as long as possible, have shared parental leave if you can and then let the chips fall where they may.

You have exercised your legal right not to disclose your pregnancy, and it sounds like they absolutely would have (illegally) discriminated against you had you not. They will not go under because of this curve ball. Congratulations on your new job and on your baby!

Your employer doesnt care about YOU, theyre in it for the profit. Staff wellbeing matters only if it cuts sick days and staff turnover. Fuck 'em, they dont give a shit what you think if them, but we lay awake thinking "what do they think of us?" IME, the best paid are the ones who really get that.

Shock, horror ... sometimes the best person gor the job is... omg... female!!! And sometimes women...god, dare I say it... have children!!!!

It's not great spending the majority of your waking hours sat with a team who've got the hump because they've been working overtime to pick up the slack.

Ideally, management should manage this but as you point out they mainly care about productivity and will happily pile the extra work onto the rest of the team. It's a tricky situation where I empathise with both sides.

Under the Equality Act it is in fact illegal to discriminate against a person who is pregnant and not appoint them if they are the best candidate. (ACAS)

According to the TUC 'Candidates are not legally required to reveal that they are pregnant during the application or interview process.'

You did nothing wrong.

They need to grow up and behave like adults.

My firm promotes women who are pregnant, on mat leave or recently returned too. Big organisations can afford to do this and so they should.

Style it out, you have continuity of employment, head up and keep going. So many women face a detriment for pregnancy/ maternity leave so why shouldn’t someone profit in the other direction occasionally?

Her manager knew, HR would have known too. Not like she was hiding it from her employer. If teams don’t communicate, well that’s hardly OP’s fault……

To be honest I think you’ve handled the pregnancy disclosure in an immature way.

Being pregnant doesn’t have to be a career barrier, if you try to give the right signals. For example instead of telling them a month later about the pregnancy in the way you did, (which you admit may have come across badly) you could have also been more proactive. Eg added on that you want to achieve X before maternity leave and Y when you return. Ie work with them to agree a reasonable plan of action especially as it’s a new role.

at the moment they’re probably thinking there’s limited value in investing in your training and onboarding if you’re going to be on a long term absence soon and therefore embedded in post for over a year. Pregnant or not, it’s a valid thing for your manager to worry about - because you might have been hired specifically to backfill team capacity. You said in regards to your previous role, that you going on maternity leave was irrelevant because it doesn’t affect the old team that much, dozens of staff etc. But you can’t judge your new team by your old team’s resourcing and standards especially as you have more responsibilities in the new role and it’s a smaller team. You basically treated the new team, as if they were your old team. Whereas for me I would have taken the approach of trying to build rapport with my new boss and building trust etc. when you work in entry level roles, you’re used to work being backfilled easy - but the more responsibility you have, the more you need to consider handovers for absences, continuity etc.

You have done absolutely nothing wrong. I'm a bit disappointed to see people saying you should have disclosed it when you have a legal right not to do so for very good reason and were evidently the best candidate for the job. Very surprised as a childfree woman to find this the less popular opinion on MN!

I think your suggestion of letting them cool off and hoping the atmosphere improves over time sounds fine. Colleagues don't have to be friends, but if you notice any whiff of discrimination, document it.

Your colleagues should be annoyed that the job was not advertised as maternity cover, not at you.

What's done is done! The should you have disclosed stuff argument is null and void as they can't discriminate against your pregnancy (although we know workplaces do). The thing is, you're ultimately still with the same company and they did hire who they thought was best for the job, that hasn't changed.

Are they pissed off? Yes! Are they being frosty? Most likely.

Now, what to do about it. Head high, friendly demeanor and just go about your job as efficiently as possible. Make yourself as useful as possible so that they will miss you when you leave and then hopefully look forward to your return. Keep in mind, the person who hired you may now be getting a quiet kick up the bum from their own boss for this, but you've done nothing wrong.

Congratulations on the promotion.

The fact you actively, cheerfully said ‘no’ , rather than just not mentioning it would rub me up the wrong way as an employer and I’d feel I’d be unable to trust you.

But you had already started, theres the difference

You should have disclosed you were pregnant at the appropriate time during the interview process and then should you feel they acted differently as a result of that information you could have dealt with it based on current employment law regarding discrimination.

As an employer I would now want rid of you, not because you are pregnant but because you have shown yourself to be untrustworthy.

Be in a job before they got pregnant

This is an assumption though, OP never said her role was directly maternity cover for someone else. The managers sound awful in general - not giving their time to speak to her before annual leave. Sounds like they only care about themselves.

This!

I think you just made that up.

This all day. It sounds like they wouldn’t have given her the job if she disclosed her pregnancy. They wouldn’t have given her another reason for turning her down.

I never get the outrage. You have to think of youself first. Your job would get rid of you in a heartbeat if they wanted to.

But then she'd have no way of proving they'd not offered her the job because she was pregnant.
Agree she should have told them before going on leave though.

What are you on about?? It’s literally in the OP.

In para 2 she says her manager knew from 6 weeks because of HG and she had 2 months on sick leave so that would have absolutely triggered HR involvement in a big firm.

I’m not sure you’re correct, in terms of the law, but in any case this was an internal transfer with the same employer. And at least one part of the employer org knew (her old boss) as OP had disclosed to them.

Oh gosh that reminds me of when we hired a candidate, waited 6 months for the end of their gardening leave, they resigned before they joined as they had another offer they had been interviewing for whilst on gardening leave.

Please don't feel this way. They are behaving in an awful, discriminatory way towards you. Yes, it's complicated for them but you were fully entitled not to disclose. It looks like you wouldn't have got the job if you had, based on their attitude and they are/would have been very much in the wrong. It's also a large, corporate employer - no one's take home is being affected and managers are paid to deal with complications. I have been a manager in that situation and my empathy for the woman, as a feminist, outweighed my concerns about covering maternity leave.

Even on Mumsnet, this is the prevailing view, that the OP has been unreasonable. The posts on this thread seem more like they support the OP, but if you look at the vote, it’s 60:40, with the 60 thinking op has been unreasonable.

I think the views are very much decided by people’s experience in the real world. I have over 25 years of experience in corporate and SmE’s and honestly in that time I’ve never seen a company (and there have been many) where the company has put any employee first. In my case, I came back from my second Maternity leave and wasn’t treated very well. I busted a gut, whilst juggling baby and work and everything else and got too reviews for my efforts. Didn’t count for a jot when they made the team redundant. All my worries about how I would tell them I was pregnant, how I did a perfect handover, was on call during mat leave in case they had queries. Didn’t count for a thing. The OP could have told them and would she have got a thanks? A guarantee when she got back she’d get an equal position? Basically she would get diddly squat for telling them and doing herself out of an opportunity that may never come up again. I know someone who turned down a promotion when pregnant as she didn’t think it would be fair to take it as she couldn’t give 100% at that time. Did she get another opportunity after she came back? Nope not at all. I think I’m maybe jaded but pretty much most women I know have been screwed over after having children so whilst I’d think in an ideal world she should have told them, I know that she wouldn’t get any pat on the back for telling them or any future recompense for doing the right thing.