How do small businesses juggle maternity requests?
A report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has decried employers who are "in the dark ages" over the recruitment of pregnant women and new mothers, but a number of small businesses are finding new ways to be accommodating.
In a survey of 1,106 private sector employers published on Monday, the EHRC found that 36pc thought that it was reasonable to ask women about their plans to have children in the future during recruitment, despite the fact that it is against the law to not appoint a woman because she is pregnant or might become pregnant.
Rebecca Hilsenrath, chief executive of the EHRC says it's clear that many employers need more support to better understand the basics of discrimination law and the rights of pregnant women and new mothers.
While there's no doubt that women should not be discriminated against for getting pregnant, there’s also no denying that for companies – especially small ones – maternity leave presents challenges, principally because there’s no way to know if an employee is coming back, which makes it hard to plan for the future.
EHRC's findings show that the most negative attitudes to pregnancy and maternity are among firms with 250 or fewer employees.
Richard Stone manages just 17 staff members at his PR agency Stone Junction, but overcomes the challenges of maternity leave by adopting an "ethical and moral" perspective.
While he concedes that planning can be one of the major pitfalls of maternity requests, he says ensuring that the workload of the person going on maternity leave is distributed correctly in advance makes it "manageable".
“This is particularly true when the person taking the leave is in a senior role," he says. "We would handle this with a temporary promotion for another member of staff, allowing them to taste a more senior role to see if its right for them. We then either transfer resource across our teams or recruit at a more junior level to provide the amount of capacity we require."
Another pitfall of maternity leave is ensuring that the employee returning to work can come back at the same level of seniority. There is a legal obligation here as well, "so it has to be a priority from both a moral and regulatory standpoint," Mr Stone says.
He admits that if the person providing maternity cover wants to stay on, this could prove to be a problem for some companies. “We’ve always been lucky that we are a high growth company so can accommodate the promotions this would necessitate. You can’t bank on that forever though and there is no real answer to this dilemma, because two people can’t squeeze into one job – unless they want to," he says.
Mark Homer co-founder of Progressive Property, which has around 70 employees, says the extra cost, which derives from paying someone who isn’t at work often, means companies are paying two people to do one job.
"This makes companies less competitive and puts them off employing more staff versus investing in mechanisation or IT to reduce headcount," he says.
The problems surrounding maternity leave generally fall into two categories: the "here and now" and "the future", says Suzanne Horne of law firm Paul Hastings.
The "here and now" is that an employee on maternity leave is going to be out of work for up to 12 months, giving rise to a myriad of HR and management unknowns: who will cover the work, when will she return, if at all, and will she want to work part-time or flexibly due to childcare needs.
The second challenge is "the future". This is about how an employer manages a woman’s career progression after a year absent from the workplace. "Whether this fact has an actual or merely perceived impact on a woman’s future career depends upon the employer, the industry, her specific role and her skillset," says Ms Horne.
"Ultimately, dialogue enables a good manager to manage and this avoids misconceptions and misunderstandings that are so often at the root of discrimination claims."
Employers who flagrantly breach discrimination laws face uncapped liability, legal fees and PR damage which will far outweigh the challenges of managing a woman’s maternity leave, she added.
FAQ | Shared parental leave in the UK
Big businesses also face challenges when it comes to maternity leave, but Josh Krichefsk, UK CEO of MediaCom, one of the world’s largest media agency networks with more than 7,000 global employees, has tackled this head-on by setting up a "Returning Women" scheme to help employees back into the workplace after having a child.
The programme consists of fast-track learning, coaching and a buddy system that encourages new mothers to upskill and embark on roles either at the company or elsewhere.
"When I [became CEO] over two years ago, I made it a priority to build a ‘culture first’ mentality and that means helping our employees organically grow as a priority," Mr Krichefsk says.
He says the company has a "100pc flexible strategy" and that, for women going through pregnancy, the ability to work from home was "invaluable", particularly when they need to attend regular doctor check-ups. Long daily commutes would put "an even greater strain on them", he says.
"Business leaders need to start the conversation and show their employees that they are willing to support them. Without a positive attitude, a business will never retain employees or build a long-term people-first culture."
TSB offers a similar "Partners for Partners" programme, launched last year, where employees who are going on parental leave are paired with a "volunteer buddy" who has been through the same experience and can be a source of support.
Paola Diana, founder of lifestyle management service Sigillus, warned of the consequences of making it difficult for women to have a career and children. "From my own personal experience coming from Italy, where women are deterred from having children should they wish to pursue a career, I have seen the difference it has made to society.
"The societal controlling of women in Italy has led to the country becoming second only to Japan as the oldest country in the world, with 22.4pc of the population over the age of 65."
The entrepreneur says she hires female employees who may already be pregnant "in a bid to elevate women as opposed to limiting their potential".
But manager attitudes have a long way to go. EHRC's survey, which was conducted by YouGov found that, when it comes to maternity discrimination in the workplace, 44pc of employers agree that women should work for an organisation for at least a year before deciding to have children.
The same number agreed that women who have had more than one pregnancy while in the same job can be a "burden" to their team.
