Pregnant and starting a new job

[Monaliz]

Hiya,

Looking for positive stories of women in similar positions… I have been offered a career change in the company I work, moving between different sectors. I will be 3.5 months when I start the new role.

Maternity pay is not a concern as I’m assuming still applicable as not leaving the company.

This will be my second child and I have been waiting for this role to land for quite a long time. I’m very excited (about both work and pregnancy), but want to ensure my pregnancy doesn’t affect my quick start, responsibilities etc.

How long would you wait to tell your employer about the pregnancy? And how did things go for you (if you’ve been in a similar position)? Any advice would be much appreciated.

x

Do whats right for you, Pregnancy is a protected characteristic and if you trust and like the company you work for there is no problem.

Legally you have to tell employers at 20weeks

I was in a similar position and didn’t tell work until around 20 weeks. They were absolutely over the moon for me and couldn’t have been more helpful with everything!

I got a significant promotion at 27 weeks. I found out the role would be available the day I got my positive pregnancy test, but it took the company a while to cement things enough to actually start the advertising process.

i was in two minds on what to do because I had a brand new manager and I wasn’t sure whether he would be fair, but I went with sharing my pregnancy early and being clear that I was doing it in the interest of transparency and because I trusted the organisation to not discriminate against my application because of my position.

this ended up being well received and ultimately didn’t have an impact on the outcome, but I won’t pretend it was easy to decide when to disclose it. Policy only protects you if the people involved in the hiring process are also non discriminatory. I was definitely lucky.

I’ll have less than a trimester in role before maternity leave, but that’s just been fuel for me to hit the ground running and do as much prep for my team as possible.

best of luck!