Have name changed for this as I don't want to out myself.
I am a director of a small company (c.25 employees). Our chairman has recently proposed incentive scheme whereby myself and one other (male) director are to be allocated share options based on achieving business development targets, specifically bringing in a fixed value of new business in the first half of 2011.
That's fine, but I am going on maternity leave in Feb and won't be coming back until the end of June, which effectively means I have only about a quarter of the working time to bring in the same value of business as the targets we are set are the same.
As I understand it this is a 'one off' scheme and there is no intention to repeat or extend the opportunity to other time periods.
I am uncomfortable with this as I seem to be at an unfair disadvantage (the scheme was proposed just before Christmas and our chairman was aware of my pregnancy and the leave I propose to take). However, I'm not clear as to whether it would count as discrimatory. Any advice would be much appreciated!