How do I help this colleague?

[ThinkIveBeenHacked]

We have a new starter in our department. She is very experienced, has been here around four weeks, picking things up great and is generally a lovely person to work with.

She came in to work poorly today and as the most senior person in (I am management level, she is supervisory though I am not her direct manager we work in departments alongside one another), I said she should go home. She had been vomiting throughout the night and morning and looked unwell.

She explained that she didnt want to ring in sick, being so new, but I reassured her that id rather she went home, got herself well and (to put it bluntly!) not spread the bug to anyone else.

She asked for a private word and has confided in me that she is pregnant. She is around 6/7 weeks and clearly coming into the morning sickness phase. I felt sorry for her - I am currently on my second pregnancy so can empathise somewhat.

She is exceptionally nervous about telling her boss, and fears that she wont be kept on after her probation due to the pregnancy. She has absoloutley took to the role so her capabilities are enough to ensure she gets kept on.

How do I help her? Obviously I will keep her secret, and have advised her that she is not duty bound to inform her boss until 25 weeks, and that as she is not expected to do any manual labour she should just see how she goes physically wise with regards her job. Ive also said if she needs me, im here to chat.

She has yet to tell her own parents, as they are away, however she and her OH are incredibly happy.

What do I do to help?

H

Maybe I should have put this in employment?

I think having someone to talk to is the best she can get now! So you offered something invaluable to her now and she is fortunate she has you there.

I don't know ins and outs of telling employer about pregnancy so perhaps move this thread to Employment if you are interested in that type of advice.

How long is her probation period? Is it realistic for her to wait till that's over then tell her boss?

Do you know her boss well? Is he/she likely to have an issue with it?

Her boss is also my boss (two pronged dept if that makes any sense) and there are currently two of us pregnant in the department - out of eight employees (well I suppose technically three out of eight!!)

The boss is known for being unsympathetic and unhelpful generally so I do want to protect employee from any possible repurcussions of Boss being sly.

Employees probationary period is twelve weeks which would take her to around 15 weeks pg.

Depending on her build and how she's carrying it's possible to make it to 15 weeks before showing. I'm assuming it's her first? If so she'll probably take a bit longer to show anyway.

I think i'd advise her to wait till the probationary period is up before 'officially' informing her boss. Only sticky point doing it that way is how bad her morning sickness is and whether anyone is likely to twig.

We do quite random shifts so im hoping that she will be ok MS wise. ive advised her to keep biscuits on her at all times as I found being hungry made me feel extra nauseous, and to rest as much as she can between her shifts.

Hopefully her MS will tail off in a few weeks!

Im so so happy for her but just dont want to fluff it up and advise the wrong thing

Just had another thought.

In case she has to inform him before her probationary period is up I would advise her to book in a meeting with her boss to discuss her progress in the role so far (say once she's been in the role for 6 weeks).

Hopefully this would go well (especially if she can produce evidence/feedback, etc) and then it would make it harder for the boss to 'be sly' when he does find out/when the pp is up iyswim.

Good idea Apocolypse

Even if the boss suspects, if their not told, they don't know and they can't ask.

Thats good to know. I will let colleague know that the boss cant ask her.

I don't suppose she gets regular appraisals or one to ones does she?

If she does or could get one in informally but formally (so recorded in some way - emails recording goals, agreements etc.) she's actually in a pretty good position to tell him sooner rather than later.

Get it in writing or witnessed that he's happy with her work, there's no problems etc. then he'd have a much harder time sacking her off because it will be obvious it's about the pregnancy.

It'd be ideal to wait till her probationary period was up, but realistically employers can get rid of you on a whim for two years unless they're obviously breaking discrimination laws (which I'm pretty sure pregnancy falls under), so the best course of action is to get evidence he's happy with her to date.

I think I would give him been pissed off, from a business point of view it is a pain in the arse losing someone for a significant stretch if they're a really good fit, but if he can keep it to a sulky face which he can lose quickly then that's not bad going imo.

X post apocalypse!

She will have some sort of appraisal at some point over the next few weeks, so I will suggest she keeps a record of it.

Even pregnant though, she will be working full time til at least mid feb which is still good.

Agree that she would be best to formally ask for a 'feedback' meeting in a few weeks.

IME, people see what they want to see, so if she makes an effort to wear loose fitting clothing, then it's unlikely she'll show earlier. As long as she doesn't draw attention to her weight/middrift, she'll be fine.

I know a woman at work who managed to get to 22 weeks before telling anyone (she'd had a late MC previously and wanted to keep it quiet as long as possible), she just wore a lot of baggy clothes, generally looked rather scruffy for our otherwise smart office, but noone did notice.

And at the risk of being too negative, at only 7 weeks, it's not certain there will be a baby, having MC myself at 11 weeks, there's no reason for her to risk her role by 'outing' herself as PG now when it's not certain she'll have a maternity leave anyway...

Surely they can't not keep her on after probation due to the pregnancy? That would be direct illegal discrimination? Just like they can't ask, or make someone redundant due to pregnancy.

I suppose she needs to make sure she has regular 'you're doing a good job so far' appraisals so she has the evidence in case they don't keep her on.

You'd think OnIlkley...

I was seconded to a tl role for 6 months. Shortly after i found out i was pg. Told my ops manager i would like to apply for the permanent role - he laughed, said he wouldn't look at my application and was very aggressive. I complained and he lied about what he'd said. I didn't get the job despite getting good reports on my secondment.

It's a big regret that i didn't take my grievance further but i was c30-odd weeks pg and getting very stressed about the whole thing. that's how it happens.