It’s a horribly unPC thing to say but in the years I’ve managed a team the returning mums with younger kids have been the ones that have taken the piss the most*, from a purely work orientated perspective. With my human head I can totally understand the difficulties they have balancing their work and family lives and why they would ask or behave the way they do. As a younger, more gullible manager I used to bend over backwards to help or understand but as I get older and more cynical I’ve realised that:-

1. A natural human action is to push the boundaries and if the boundaries seem a bit more flexible there are plenty of folk that will push a bit harder.

2. Everyone has the right to ask and if you don’t ask you don’t get. But you also have the right to say no.

*I’m not talking about statutory rights here but other things like turning up late and leaving early, requesting all the teaching groups that have minimal prep or marking, requests not to attend meetings, “forgetting” about training days etc etc.

My sympathies OP. I’m not an SME and don’t employ anyone but it seems to me the employment laws in this country are ridiculous unless you’re a large corporation who can afford this kind of thing.

To be fair to the lady in question, she’s only requesting what she’s entitled to and while you might hope she’d be a little more accommodating she doesn’t need to be.

It’s all the stupid bleeding heart policy makers of the last XX years that are to blame. PC this, H&S that, it’s all a load of wotsits.

Good luck getting this sorted Graham, ideally to everybody’s satisfaction. My folks ran their own business (family business taken over from my grandparents) but eventually opted to sell up and take early retirement because of all the stress and hassles they were facing as a small employer when supposedly “loyal” long term employees put the whole enterprise, and the jobs of their colleagues, at risk in circumstances where (a similar) “one rule for all, large or small” was applied.

The bit I don’t understand is why people on maternity leave can accrue holiday as if they were working full time. I’ve had it happen twice in the UK where someone comes back from leave, goes part time, takes a load of holiday (often 2-3 months on their new hours) then resigns. I can see why some people do it as it is basically free money but I don’t understand the reasoning behind the regulation.

flowerpower – I don’t believe you can do that. If someone takes 52 weeks, they get their full entitlement.

convert makes a good point – the next thing will be the coming in late because junior was crying, leaving early because junior has a cough and the nursery won’t let him stay in, etc etc.

Then just as things settle down, bam, she’s pregnant again and the whole sorry cycle starts again.

(I have two kids and my missus stays at home with them, mainly because we couldn’t afford childcare for both)

As an ex small business owner :(, Berm Bandit I can relate fully to your position.
I had a maternity situation some years ago where someone took there full benefit as it was at the time, we covered them internally during this then they decided not to come back at all,
Very difficult situation with the Husband working for me as well, totally unprepared from a HR point of view, cost me many hours personally covering her work.

Makes my wee wee boil when politicians talk about removing red tape for small employers, it is the absolute opposite!

Im doing a bit of mail sorting up to Xmas, but if your anywhere near Wiltshire and you need some help in the new year send me a pm, I will help out if I can 😉

Like I say, maternity leave – is leave surely or otherwise why not call it something else?

its leave – like study leave or sick leave – not holiday.

A friend of my had to have major surgery – having bones broken and reset, stuff that hadn’t healed properly from an car smash years earlier. He was off work for year. After a year housebound (and wheelchair bound) and bored he finally returned to work only to be told by his employer he had a year of holiday entitlement he was required to take. He tried to turn it down are he’d had enough of his own company and really wanted to start back. The insisted. In the last few days of his month off he went over the bars of his bike and broke his collarbone 🙂

Berm Bandit – Member

…We’re not big enough to have specialist HR people…

Posted 1 hour ago # Report-Post

Press the Big Red Button 😉 http://www.basehr.co.uk/ (I’m in no way affiliated to this company, but have experiance of their expertise and can very highly recommend them for your situation).

We get the same issue at school. Nice bit of timing puts maternity starting 1 week before xmas hols which carries through to the next Oct (or whenever). Allows staff member to claim back all those holidays missed on maternity (so 3+3+8=14weeks, n.b. numbers rounded for ease) either or as extra time off (minus any holidays which crop up n that time) or as pay.

bah… wrong thread

Berm Bandit, you have my sympathies.

Have you explained the situation to her, is she willing to be flexible in return? Ie return to work now, and take the holiday over the next year? If not consider handing her a redundancy notice (if you are looking at possible administration this is not unreasonable). No-one is irreplaceable, you will find skills to replace her, although you would need to be careful on how you word the job description or live without her position being filled for six months before advertising it.

Thanks for all the advice and support, much appreciated.

To be fair to my employee I din’t think she is being difficult or awkward, just asking for what is her due. Problem is I didn’t see the flick in the tail and its caught me out. Its not her fault, anymore than the current economic climate is. Just the timing is unfortunate, and comes at the worst possible time. We’ve had an almighty run of crap which has pushed us to the brink, such as an important supplier suddenly deciding to shut his business down without warning, (probably had someone come back from maternity leave I reckon!), a new replacement supplier performing poorly, sudden unexpected market changes, (and before anyone gets clever, its a trebling of demand, which personally I wouldn’t have expected), individually not a problem, but collectively a huge whammy. Current topic simply has straw/camels back interface implications.

PS: Davetrave, good to hear from you. what are you up to now? Still falling over in the mess routinely?

Sadly both your employee and the law are taking the piss out of your buissness along with all your hard work.

Fold the company or wind down and start up next day as a new company, or make her redundant at the minimum rate, and then recruit somebobdy else mature and probably male to take her place on a new contract with new responsibilities or less.

Otherwise youll go bust through no fault of your own.

Luckily for most forward thinking people, but unfortunately for you, we do not live in the 1800’s anymore where you would simply kick the mother and her devilish offspring into the poo gutter.

Perhaps you shouldn’t be running a business.

Ricdiggle it was just an enquiry as I’m not sure on he legal standing. As a matter of course my notes on customer files are bland and noncommittal just to cover this very point.
As a small employer my boss is ill-eqippped to fight a legal battle over access with a well funded individual and I may well lose my job.

I accept that there are problems with womens rights in the workplace but a prudent employer will have a contingency plan for those of child-bearing age (up to 60 with current medical technical advances). One that a lot of government departments use is the if you want to work part time you need a jobsharer if your job is deemed a whole person one, no second body no part-time work.

I would second the need for the OP to revise his HR policies with a competent third party to avoid this happening again. The money spent on (possibly) making a valuable employee redundant could be better used tightening up employment contracts.

To be fair to my employee I din’t think she is being difficult or awkward, just asking for what is her due.

That’s as maybe, but I’d argue that somebody working for a small company, especially one which is struggling a bit (you have made her aware of your struggles haven’t you?) ought to try and be a little flexible when demanding their rights.

When mini-aracer #1 was born, mrs aracer worked for a large company – she got every little bit she could out of them (she was made redundant whilst on maternity, but so was her whole department, and she did get every penny due – including amusingly an extra allowance for agreeing to provide extra cover after the first set of redundancies, which she got agreed the day before telling them she would be off on maternity for that whole period). When mini-aracer #2 was born she worked for a small company – though one which was and continues to do very well. She largely got what she was entitled to, though not every piss-taking penny – for example she was entitled to continue to claim childcare vouchers which she had been paying for out of her salary – however when she was on statutory her salary wasn’t high enough to pay for them, so the company would have had to pay for them instead. She didn’t claim for those. She was also pretty flexible about other stuff, which is the way to go IMHO (I suppose they didn’t have the issue about switching from full-time to part-time though, as she started that job working part-time, which was the same point I also went part-time).

nukeproofriding – Member
Luckily for most forward thinking people, but unfortunately for you, we do not live in the 1800’s anymore where you would simply kick the mother and her devilish offspring into the poo gutter.

Perhaps you shouldn’t be running a business.

And perhaps you shouldn’t be making ill-informed comments on a thread you haven’t read properly. The OP makes it quite clear he has/is doing everything he can to accommodate the employee and has no wish to punt her out on her backside… 🙄

I happen to have been supported in riding from one side of the country to the other by the OP, of his own free will, in his own time, because his back packed up and he couldn’t ride with us. He spent the best part of 4 days driving from the south, up to the Lakes, across to Yorkshire, back to Wales to return us to our cars, then back home.

Not sure what that says about his business acumen, but I think it demonstrates quite clearly that nukeproof is barking up the wrong tree in terms of the OP’s levels of altruism.

😳 <cough cough>

and it was a proper laugh zokes, not altrusitic at all. Enjoyed doing it, and the ongoing friendships that emanated from it.

The postscript to the above thread is that we have sat down today and discussed the scenario, and basically decided to call it a day. Not a cataclysmic business failure or anything. Just as described a straw/camel interface too far, and the partners simply having had enough.
We will be winding up under control and hopefully will do the right thing by the folks.