Comments on: Potential Pregnancy?

By: Teri

Teri — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 03:02:00 +0000

Class Factotum, what kind of discriminatory hiring practices result in a workforce that is 50 percent fecund? I think it’s immoral of your company to have these hiring practices.

By: class factotum

class factotum — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 01:13:00 +0000

Depends if you're planning to quit once you have the baby. If you are, then you will be leaving your new employer in a lurch. Even if you're not, you will probably be taking your 12 weeks of leave, right?

I worked in an office where we had half -- that's right, half -- the staff out on maternity leave at the same time. We did not have the funds to hire temps to replace them, so it fell upon the rest of us to pick up the slack. I did not have warm fuzzy feelings toward the new moms, I can assure you, and had one of them started working right before she had the baby, I would have been royally ticked off.

If you are indeed pregnant (which, for your sake, I hope you are), you will be burdening your co-workers in nine months. Is this legal? Yes. Is it moral? No.

By: First Year

First Year — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 16:26:00 +0000

I agree with you Evil HR lady…. I don’t think theres any reason for her to let them know, I mean at this point its still “trying” (though really, best of luck in that regard). It would strange to tell your future employers you’re trying or hoping to get pregnant.

As for telling people when you are already pregnant, I have some mixed feeling about that. On on hand, if someone is a few weeks pregnant I think I would keep quite, because really most people don;t tell anyone at that point and the potentional for discrimination is fairly high. However, if its a pretty certain pregnancy then it seems a little dishonest almost not to say anything. In that case, I guess its whatever feels right….

By: --spared--

--spared-- — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 15:39:00 +0000

I had a similar situation in 2006. I took on a 4 month project for a firm (I'm also in HR) and the Company decided to make me a job offer in April. By then I was pregnant with my fourth child, and although I accepted the offer I decided not to tell the Company until I was passed my probationary period.

Frankly, my medical condition would not have impeded my ability to fulfill my job requirements.

I worked as a Generalist for several years, an employee advocate and then went into consulting and corporate recruiting, so I've seen all ends of the game. I know many companies will use the pregnancy as an excuse to not hire the person, even if they would have otherwise kept the employee therefore I do not recommend any employee release medical information unless they absolutely must.

It's just one of those things where you need to put on your HR hat and become the employee's protector and stop thinking about the big, profit-mongering Company for a change.