AIBU to feel frustrated about manager's repeated maternity leave?

[ShesPregnantAgain]

My manager, let's call her Betty, has just announced her fifth pregnancy. I've enthusiastically congratulated her but I'm actually pissed off. She's barely been at work for the past 7 years. She gets pregnant, that makes her ill so she's off for most of her pregnancy, then 9 months on maternity leave, comes back and a few months later does it all again.

The job she used to do doesn't really exist any more. The company's moved on: all the people, systems and expectations are different. They get in maternity cover for her every time so someone gets trained up, actually does a good job, does a handover when she comes back and then leaves. It's so disruptive.

I know the company can't fire her for pregnancy-related sickness or for taking maternity leave per her statutory rights. They can't even performance manage her because she's never here long enough, or appoint one of her covers to do the job permanently. None of us can work for promotion to her level because that would discriminate against her. Her manager does promote people out sideways and upwards but she's just there, filling the role without actually doing anything. We all just get on without her.

I know that women, me included, benefit from these protections because of the crap women suffered in the past. I just think she's taking the piss.

Except she's not working is she.

Erm.. im pretty sure OP would still be pissed off if her manager was a man and doing this!!

You can’t make a role redundant if you have to get someone in to cover it when she’s off. It’s clearly a necessary role, so it’s not redundant at all.

Yes she has the right to work. She could also be honest and say look, I'm coming back but intend to have another baby so it might be worth keeping my cover in place. What's the detriment to her? She's already protected and knows that the company won't break the law over her. She can have 20 babies if she likes but it would be more decent of her if she did it while having some consideration for the rest of us.

Money?

It’s incredibly frustrating for those left behind in the workplace, she isn’t breaking the law but is taking the piss.

As above. It's not the same role, just managing the same people.

Surely it's the company's responsibility to make sure her pregnancies don't effect the the rest of the team negatively not hers? Not sure why she should feel the need to leave her job because the company's plan to cover her maternity leave pisses off her colleagues?

It’s not deliberate. Nobody chooses to be ill in pregnancy and you don’t know if the pregnancies were planned.

If she’s not using childcare for young children when she’s working then that’s a management problem.

Picking on a working mother is so low.

Like I said, the pregnancies might not have been planned. It’s not her job to consider the impact on her coworkers, that’s for the company to sort.

I don't see what else the company can do? They can't fire her, hire a replacement or keep her maternity cover on "just in case". I'm not HR though so don't know all the options available, just have done some frustrated Googling.

Funny how her illnesses just happen to be when she needs childcare. She is taking the piss and sadly we all know women like her who let down the rest of us.

As someone says up thread- they only employ older women or men. If she stops at 5 just wait until all the childcare emergencies happen. She knows it would be a brave manager to dig into what is happening here.

I'm not picking on her. I'm a working mother who actually works. I have enthusiastically congratulated her every time, sent her well-wishes when she's been off and helped her settle back in. I haven't badmouthed her or complained. I'm just feeling frustrated by the impact her choices are having on the team and how she's playing the system so no one can do anything about it.

All this can be true and yet, for those left behind in the job it can also be incredibly irritating and frustrating.
A member of staff where I work has just announced she’ll be having an another baby 3 months after she’s due to start back from maternity leave. It’s really screwed the rest of us. Replacing her is going to be incredibly difficult and cause serious strain on already very stretched finances.
We’ve all told how excited we are for her and we’ll pay out for baby gifts and throw a shower but several of us are a bit miffed and very stressed about how we’re going to manage.

Some women plan their pregnancies like this. It's an utter pisstake of the protections that have been put in place for women in the workplace it's even been posted on here in the past on back to back pregnancies and how to maximise maternity leave. Anyone defending it obviously thinks along the same lines.

@ShesPregnantAgain You reorganize the department and make that job redundant! The job had to go. You can also dismiss on sickness that makes her not capable because she’s not there. Firms often give warnings on sickness records. It’s clearly unfair on other workers and the company.

I used to teach in a school where a teacher did this over 4 pregnancies. She went off sick for almost the entirety of each one, took a full 12 months leave and came back already pregnant each time. We worked out that she’d actually taught for less than 9 months in over 5 years…after the 4th baby arrived, she came back for summer term having already handed in her notice to finish teaching on 31st August.

You can't take disciplinary action over pregnancy-related sickness.

ETA: If they reorganised the department, they would have to offer her the role line managing the same people she's got already. That would mean making one of the other managers redundant, achieving nothing.

So what is your solution?

Women aren’t allowed to have more than one baby?

Women ought to plan their family around the convenience of their employers?

Woman who are pregnant or planning multiple pregnancies are not allowed to work? (Despite women always being told to keep their foot in the door so as not to be financially dependent on a man.)

YANBU, it’s selfish for the rest of the team, but of course it would be almost impossible to get rid of her so this will continue until she stops having children.

My DN has a teacher who has been off on multiple maternity leaves the last 6 years and barely taught anyone, it has been incredibly disruptive for the pupils and stressful for other teachers.

Pregnancy related sickness is protected and can’t be included in sickness dismissal, neither can sickness absence related to disability.

But men don’t get the same parental leave as women

The solution is she says, "Right, I'm coming back in January but will most likely to be off again in March." Then she keeps her job, her cover stays on and everyone's happy. She comes back to work when she's actually ready to work.