New report on maternity discrimination: share your experiences

[RachelCMumsnet]

New research published today by the European Human Rights Commission reveals that 54,000 new mothers are being forced out of work every year owing to maternity discrimination. One in 10 of the 3,200 women surveyed had been dismissed, made compulsorily redundant or treated so poorly they had quit their job, and one in 20 said they received a cut in pay or bonus after returning to their job. You can read more about the report and what JustineMumsnet had to say about it here.

This may not come as a surprise to many of you - when we asked Mumsnetters about the impact of having children on their career, to coincide with the launch of Mumsnet Jobs, 91% felt there was a 'motherhood penalty', which sees women's careers take a nosedive post-children and contributes to the gap in workplace pay and seniority between men and women. And in our last Family Friendly programme survey, only 13% of workers said their employer was very family friendly and could not do more.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on this report. Please share your experiences below - and if your employer did something particularly great in order to accommodate you before, during or after maternity leave, what was it?

Agree with YesIhaveawomb:

Where I work now, things couldn't be more different - flexible working is standard for everyone, there is a generous maternity package, they pay a contribution towards childcare costs, loads of people work condensed hours or part-time and no-one bats an eyelid if you have a child-related emergency to deal with, as long as the work gets done and you don't take the piss. And actually, no-one does take the piss - we all appreciate that we have a really good working environment, and we don't want to sabotage that. We are expected to get results, and we do, and to work hard, which we do, and our performance is properly monitored. But within that, there is an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect, which I think actually gets better results from people than if you treat them like shit and sack them for being pregnant. The entire culture is different - none of this 'watch your back' or bitching about other people nonsense, which was a feature of every other job I've had. It just doesn't exist. And that is beneficial not only to working parents but to all employees.

I have worked for the same large multi-national for over 20 years and only now have we reached the above in terms of policies and culture, which is great, and a huge improvement to the basic 12 week ML package I got with my first in the early 2000s. However, as a Senior Manager, I unfortunately have to deal with the very small percentage of folks who do actually take the p* by using their family commitments (be they childcare or other reasons) as excuses for underperformance. Unfortunately, these folks have a hugely skewed idea of entitlement which will always push the boundaries of the most enlightened companies' policies and culture .

just to say this happened to me in 2004 (lawyer, top performer before maternity, no work to do when I got back, bullied out, compromise agreement).

In some ways it was the best thing that's ever happened to me as I set up on my own and my business has now done well for 11 years, but that's not really the point; it was clearly a result of me having been away. Plus I miss the pension/sick pay security - I recently had a health scare which brought home the insecurity of running your own business.

Would love to support any campaign.

Even though this has happened to me I'm shocked at how many other women have had to go through this. I thought I was the only one and was actually ashamed of what happened.

I was senior management, managing a global team of around thirty people having worked my way up over 9 years with several promotions and never a bad review, and then two months after I told them I was pregnant I was hauled up on a disciplinary and accused on non-performance. I was excluded from meetings and members of my team were given projects without my knowledge etc etc. I eventually went off with stress and resigned at the end of my ML. I should have fought, but I was too tired and battered by it all. Now at a large multi-national and on second ML and have been treated amazingly well by the organisational framework and a wonderful boss. It DOES work at some companies but I think it does depend on the individual you work for. I also think smaller companies are more guilty of bad behaviour.

I'd fully and openly back any campaign though, this needs more exposure so companies feels it's not worth the hassle of targetting mothers.

9 months mat leave.

Around month 7 i started making contact to arrange return to work.

They didn't respond at all until a month before I was due to return to work (rtw 3rd Jan). And then it was to 'advise' of potential redundancy. To invite me to an interview to discuss options.

I went, naively, armed with alternative roles (I was admin and suggested I become a cleaner until things picked up) but they were ticking boxes.

They tried to place blame on a recent tragedy, for delaying a contract and that was affecting my role directly.

Christmas week I get a letter, inviting me back.for a "chat". I was told my role was no longer viable, cost cutting for the company and that I'd be made redundant only expected rtw date - 3rd January.

So they'd waited until I was no longer on mat leave to drop the guillotine. To cover their arses.

I.was ill with pnd and had been focussing on returning to work to help pull me out of the fug. I was too unwell to fight them, I just rolled over.

Oh and my role? Part time receptionist/administrator..16 hours a week, £7 an hour.

They must have saved so much money.

My employer didn't cover me for my maternity. Instead they got one of my team - a lovely graduate with no qualifications or any experience in the field to "fill in" for the year on less than 1/4 of my salary. So this meant I was racked with guilt about dropping him in it and leaving. The job involved working with very vulnerable children and so it's not like I could just think my boss is rubbish fuck 'em. I know that some pupils suffered because there was no one there to support them and that is very hard. Then I came back to a huge pile of work and missed deadlines, expelled pupils etc which was all too much with a baby. Felt like an enormous failure and left (at which point I was made to feel like a betrayer of the kids and brought to a real low point).

Thing is, maternity marks a convenient watershed in hierarchal businesses like law and accountancy partnerships. you only get one equity partner for every X trainees (maybe one in ten) so at some point you have to get rid of most people. Maternity leave is the easiest time to do it because the employee is likely to be tired and vulnerable to accusations.

Contrast GPs who are effectively begged to come back 2 days a week becaue they are needed.

I think we need to be more honest about the way maternity leave is used in this wayso that the organisation can continue to work the way it always has done.

I'm currently expecting my first and my current employer has been great I know a job with flexible pt hours will be available on my return. However ttc was a long process for me took just under 2 years and for the majority of that time I worked for a different company built myself up from gratuate to senior management but was constantly being told 'you better not get pregnant if you care about your career...' by my manager. I honestly think the stress and worry contributed to my long ttc tine. In new job 2 months before getting pregnant and they have been great so far. Some of these stories are completely shocking

I had my flexible working in practise for a number of years (after returning from maternity leave) at a Forbe's voted world's best top 10 company to work for workplace benefits and flexibility yadeyada. A new manager took over the team and didn't agree with this even though he had no reasonable foundation at all to made the demand that my flexible working should cease. His reason was that he didn't want flexible working be seen as the norm. He absolutely demanded that my flexible agreement should be revoked.

I escalated this twice to HR and even cc'd my boss's boss (no answer from the latter). I complained about mistakes in my boss's approach, his demands and also his low level bullying. HR agreed with me that my flexible working should stay as my company would not suffer materially or otherwise. I worked for this company and got consistent quarterly and exceeded performance ratings for SEVEN years . And as soon as this issue happened, my performance rating nose dived over what I perceived - trivial matters.

I've had several confidential conversations with colleagues who have been in similar situations as I across the company and it seems that flexible working is very dependent on the boss you have. All these ''reasons'' for or against flexible working goes out of the window unless you have a supportive boss.
It's shocking what goes on in companies. ''Managing out'' ''poor'' employees is rife just because of jealously and if ideals do not fit.

HR was absolutely rubbish and I did not feel empathy or support from them at all. Needless to say, they lost a highly qualified and talented female member of staff. It's a shame I had to threaten legal action for me to see any positive progress in my situation.

My opinion is that this kind of thing happens alot far more than people want to admit.

When i started my last job in private company the company was great as my oldest son was only 9 months old and after probation i was able to work from home 2 hours every day remaining in office. Company and my boss was very understanding when my son was unwell and i had to take time off etc.
I was very good at the job so was promoted and things were very good until we got a new boss to manage the team. New boss was so not understanding that i had a child, she expected me to stay behind to do more work, didnt like the fact i did some hours from home. when i refused to stay behind as it was becoming a regular occurrence and i didn't get paid overtime for it. got comments like ' cant you get someone else to look after him' etc. I was not behind on any work and i was one of the top performers on the team. Even other managers that we had to review with never had a problem with me leaving early and doing some hours from home. always booked meetings in morning with consent of others and if occasionally had to stay behind i would. They all knew i got the job done and never had any complaints on my work. In fact the very opposite other managers were happy with my work.

Anyway when i was pregnant again and told my boss could tell she wasn't very happy. did not like the fact i had appointments to see midwife and consultants on company time. wanted me to use my holiday. The last day before maternity i was one of the last people to leave bar my boss as she wanted me to to finish a set of accounts even though it had been handed over to someone else.
When i came back from maternity leave was demoted and no longer able to work 10 hours from home (2 each day). Was told if i wanted to stay in current job had to do full time in office or move departments and do less hours in office and no working from home.
First excuse was is too costly to set up working from home. when i countered with i am already set up so no extra costs. Was then told business needs had changed and now required people to work from office and were no longer offering working from home. Even though the people that were working from home before i left were still doing it.
Went part-time in demoted job and was doing same amount of work as full-time people. Got all the complicated accounts as was the only one with the knowledge and determination to do the job. When told about 3rd pregnancy got the response 'oh congrats but whose gonna do your work when you go'. Left job after 3rd pregnancy did not want to go back to that environment.
Companies are becoming less understanding some peoples attitude is awful.

Would be great if we could get a manager's opinion on here about working from home/flexible working. Why do some manager's feel it's paramount that 'face time' in office = work? Even worse, why do managers get so aggro about it? I knew colleagues in the office did NOTHING for half a day and went for extended coffee breaks. I don't see how being in the office automatically equals productivity.

I second the above re Face time in the office, I work in academia and have just returned to work after my first. The whole upper tier of management is male and the only women in senior roles are childless. We have childcare provision on site, and I confessed to a senior colleague that I was dreading having my child in childcare full-time, having really enjoyed my year with them. The colleague responded that his kids had been in full-time childcare from six months' old and it hadn't hurt them. As though that's just the way it has to be. I feel that people at work are so detatched from the emotional experience of having kids, you are really forced to completely divorce yourself from your homelife, and yet there are people in the office whose productivity is so low they may as well not be here.