What are your thoughts on the proposed increase to 1 year for Maternity Pay for Women. Will this help our cause or hinder it. If you are an employer does this legislation put you off employing women of child bearing age? With two candidates with roughly the same credentials/fit for your job would maternity leave/pay be a deciding factor for you?

Great topic Susan. I think it most definitely will have a negative impact on women of child-bearing age. Whatever legislation may impose on employers of what they can and can't ask at interview, the clever interviewer can extract information clandestinely and find out what your family plans are. I was once interviewed by a large international corporate and one of the questions I got asked was if I was planning to have children! OK it was 15 years ago, but they still weren't allowed to ask those kind of questions. Funny enough, I didn't accept the job, as something better came up, but a couple of years later I met the girl who did - in the maternity ward at Northwick Park Hospital!

At another large international corporate the interviewer actually said to me that his reservations for hiring me were that I had a small child which made him doubt my commitment ... as in his situation it was always his wife that had to take time off if his kids were ill (silly wife!). Needless to say I wasn't hired despite my explaining my backup cover for childcare.
Vee

As an employer I would think twice about employing women who were planning on having children in the near future, although I am of child bearing age myself! I have employed a lady in the past that would always not come to work when her son was ill and could not go to nursery. It became a regular thing, at least one day a month, which is just not acceptable. In the end she would use it as an excuse to have a day off!

It is sad that being a female I would not be more supportive to women who have children but in business you can't let emotions take control. So sorry ladies.

Hi Kellie, I can understand your sentiments as I employed a secretary and she had probably on average one day off a week due to child care issues which in a small business seriously disrupts the business as you don't have any spare back up. It's a very difficult situation as obviously we all want to abide by the discrimination laws that are there to help us women, we all want to help other women to get on and be employed if that is their wish, yet we also want our businesses to succeed and for the small business this is so difficult if paying out for an employee who isn't contributing.

As a small business the potential of an employee having time off for maternity leave would not bother me. The governement help small businesses by paying 100% of the maternity benefit plus 4.5% compensation payment, and as the payments through maternity leave are lower there is often no employers NIC.

Also as a small employer I can be fairly flexible with my working arrangments and potentially fit around the hours that mum wants to work if she returns.

As an employee in the past I found that the most flexible employers when I returned to work after having kids were the smallest employers, as they were prepared to offer flexible working hours and time off if necessary to care for sick kids etc.

I'm all for encouraging better conditions for parents both male and female to support their needs during pregnancy and after the baby is born.