When ‘what’s best for our business’ is not hiring a pregnant woman, adland has failed
In this anonymous submission, a pregnant agency planner challenges the ad industry to be better for women.
I’ve never had a problem with being female. For the most part, the modern male figures in my life have been nothing but respectful, supportive, sensitive and smart. My experience in the ad industry as a twenty-something planner was similar.
And then.
Towards the end of last year, I interviewed for a position at a new agency. The chemistry was great, we really hit it off. The follow up interview went no less swimmingly, and things were looking good.
A talented female creative friend had a similar experience at an independent Sydney agency. She had a young toddler and was constantly grilled in the interview about the impact the child would have on her ability to perform the role. ‘How often is the kid sick?’ ‘Do you have a strong support network to call on?’ Even after providing the honest, right answers, the interviewer gave an eye roll. My colleague was passed over for a bloke. Making this even sadder is the fact the interviewer was a female who presents herself as an advocate for women on this and other sites.
Can you really blame them? Why would a business hire someone who is already pregnant!? Knowing that person will need time off for doctors visits, then maternity leave, find a cover, keep the job open until they come back etc.
I understand things happen, but it’s a but much expecting companies to hire you when you’re already pregnant. [Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy].
Mumbrella – surely you can take down this comment – it’s disgusting.
Hi Andrea,
You are absolutely right. Those words shouldn’t have been published, and all I can do is apologise that they were. Sorry.
We have edited the comment so it is now less horrendously offensive.
Apologies again,
Vivienne – Mumbrella
Thanks Vivienne, I’m sure it’s tough to be across everything every second of the day!
Don’t make a public site, with public commentary if you are incapable of handling the other side of the argument. If 2 people came to work for me, one fractionally more competent but with knowledge they need maternity leave, then the other person would be hired. The reality is that business needs to run, and have staff on, hiring individuals who feel entitled to months of time off paid, while contributing absolutely nothing to their job, is a joke. If you cannot afford to have kids, then don’t! Why should companies have to pay out for you and your partners foolish decision making.
[Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy].
Really?
I gasped out loud when I read this comment, ‘about [edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy]. I really am deeply disappointed that a female is using such sexist remarks. Shame on you!
Of course there are two sides and let’s not pretend that it may be inconvenient for an employee to take time off due to pregnancy. But don’t forget that it doesn’t stop her performing her job and it is illegal to discriminate against her! We are never going to achieve gender equality if we do not adapt to the simple biological fact that women have children. Come on people, think about the long term. My experience has been that working mothers are the most adaptable, multi taskers you can employ. Diligent, hard working and focused. We need to champion them not denigrate them. And if the 3 month contract was too much of a challenge, at least have the guts to have a conversation and look for another solution.
It’s either a man trying to convince us he’s a woman, or it’s a woman whose internalised misogyny and Stockholm Syndrome is boss level… not literally with that attitude, one hopes.
Because all “normal” women conform to the ideas you would expect them to hold.
Well said, Say What? I am sick of this inability to criticise breeding women – they do not represent me and therefore they do no represent all women. And no company should have to put up with the inconvenience of hiring them if they don’t want to. Pregnancy and motherhood aren’t illnesses, they’re lifestyle choices.
Yes it’s a choice. That’s the point. That women have to choose between having a career and having a family. That’s a choice men don’t have to make.
[Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy]
Really?
How many doctors visits do you think a pregnant woman needs? And what’s not to say their chosen recruit isn’t going to jump ship after 6 months when he is presented with his next shiny opportunity?
Well said ‘Anonymous’: “As an organisation, as a decision-maker, as someone in a position to hire and fire: your watershed moment will come not with awards won, or with how you celebrated International Women’s Day.”
As for you, “Anon woman” maybe keep your mouth closed [Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy]
I disagree, since it was a 3 month contract they could have used that time to see if she is the right person and if she would have done a great job it shouldn’t matter if she would take some time off. Businesses need to stop looking only at their short term bottom line.
Are you out of your mind?!
That’s terrible and I know so many people going through that. I personally got engaged and feel the need to take off my ring at interviews or when I am meeting someone to get someone to highly perceive I am focused on work and not be distracted by my personal life.
Organisations celebrating women’s day is a joke. Heck, one that doesn’t celebrate – we complain about also. The core issue is about leaders not being genuineness inspirations and being human. I’m sure they’d give their daughters or nieces a chance without bias if they were strapped and in need of a job
Please name the agency
Name and shame can spark real change
Why should the agency be “shamed”? The author of this article is anonymous and there is no verification it even happened.
So much outrage over a very minor hiring experience.
Totally agree! Unacceptable! Adland has a terrible reputation for retaining any female talent – let alone good talent – after they start a family. This agency not only broke the law but are obviously devoid of the creative thinking they undoubtedly peddle.
Like all foolish advocates. Firing off without any fact checking, or effort in verifying a story. Sensationalist claptrap.
This is not limited to Adland at all, and just because you have anecdotal evidence from people you know doesn’t change that.
The majority of the time when a company is hiring for a role, it is because they need additional support, either because of someone else leaving the role or it’s a new role that is required to provide additional support to business functions.
It does not make any business sense to hire someone who will be leaving the role (albeit temporarily) in a few months time, leaving the business to expend time and resources and the manager to go back to hiring someone on a maternity contract (can be much more difficult sometimes).
Anyone who has this expectation doesn’t understand the impacts that their situation has on the business and the other people in their team. When you go on maternity leave, guess who has to pick up your slack in the mean time until a replacement is found? Everyone else.
Maternity/paternity leave for people in full time positions is a great thing, but to say that if a company doesn’t hire a pregnant woman then they are backwards and ‘failing’ is completely selfish, and shortsighted.
I personally would not want to hire someone who wasn’t able to consider this and understand why this could be a concern for my business.
I’m not saying it should be ruled out completely automatically, but every hiring manager HAS to consider “how well can this person execute on their responsibilities in this role if I hire them?”, that’s the basic idea behind being hired.
This isn’t about what happens to the business when a person leaves to have a baby. This is about a business respecting the fact that women have babies, and are entitled to work just as much as men are. Who cares what it does to your business – if it becomes harder, so what? You’ll figure it out. Surely supporting women who are going through something incredibly life changing means more to you than making your bottom line. Or maybe it doesn’t. It makes me so sad that managers always prioritise the business over what is the right thing to do for people.
“Who cares what it does to your business?” That comment sums up the naivety of so many of the comments here. We live in sad times.
Incredibly inconsiderate comment from one who expects automatic consideration for others.
Hold on there my friend and wait until you come back to work after maternity leave…
Try looking for a new job then and you’ll be surprised how the agency recruiters change their game from admiring you to politely ignoring you as soon as they hear the words “mum of a toddler” and “part time”… So much for supporting work/life balance, gender balance and all roles flex.
Ex-recruiter turned media (there seems to be a few of us, incidentally).
Can sadly vouch that this is not uncommon in any industry.
Being a male, we generally also get the honest “raw” brief when dealing with hiring managers.
I recall one particular business specifying no pregnant women for the reasons above and then, almost as an afterthought: “also no asians – they dont know how to drink”.
This happened as recently as 2012 and is the world we live in, unfortunately.
It’s 2019 though? That’s 7 years ago!
So saying “don’t send us pregnant women or Asian candidates” was ok in 2012?!
You’re so woke, you should be living in 2099.
It’s a terrible anthropological situation. A bloke does something to a female -30 secs worth – and the female has a 9 months tough time, plus years thereafter. It’s all unfair. Unfortunately, nature designed it this way. With the negative birth rates now, it’s a national issue not an individual company’s issue, as to the encouragement of births, and the costs of employees making their own choices on any pregnancy. And at this micro level it is a cost of difference between a mother and the 30 sec bloke.
The world is highly overpopulated, maybe we can live in a society where social constructs like the nuclear family, and marriage can finally die out.
Anonymous, thanks for sharing your story.
I’m sorry you’ve been through this. It’s all too common.
Two years ago, when I was looking for a GM to run my agency, the perfect candidate was pregnant as well. But because we’re a long term thinking company — and perhaps because I’ve been pregnant and returned to work just as kick-ass as I was before — we hired her.
https://www.smartcompany.com.au/people-human-resources/ai-mawdsley-changed-careers-pregnant-lessons/
To the trolls and skeptics: you’re losing top talent.
To everyone else, keep us in mind when you’re looking for your next career move.
This is such an admirable way to approach this and brilliant Richenda. Thanks for sharing!
YASSS! Love this!
First up, if this was purely a decision made against a pregnant employee for a 3 month contract, then it’s ridiculous and none of the below should apply.
But in terms of hiring somebody pregnant as a full time employee, I think there are factors that need considering and we need to be able to have a mature conversation around this and understand that there are shades of grey here.
I am a small business owner (approximately 10 staff, 4 at the time of the below example) and also a husband to a wife in advertising with multiple children.
A few years ago, at the same time that my wife and I personally were going through the pregnancy/mat leave/back to work/pregnant again cycle with our first two kids and I saw the value of stability of employment and my wife being treated fairly by her agency… (she was)…I also saw my small business massively affected by my other two client facing employees both getting pregnant within a few weeks of each other.
It had a huge impact on the business…not just the loss of knowledge, contacts, output etc but even more so, the uncertainty and difficult around planning for the future. You don’t know (and can’t really ask) when maternity/paternity leave employees will return and in what capacity and this makes it really difficult to operate at this size. I loved and valued both of them, I paid them a level of maternity leave at a time when it wasn’t the law and I 100% hoped that they would return. So I didn’t want (and couldn’t afford) to hire other people full time, contracts weren’t an option and so as a result, the business went into a form of limbo for 12 months and we had our worst revenue year ever. One eventually came back 3 days for 6 months before leaving for a corporate role and the other never returned to work so after the year of limbo I had to re-invest and kick start the business again from a lower base.
I fully supported their rights to make the best decisions for them and their families from both a legal and an ethical perspective and totally empathised with it given my wife and I were experiencing all the challenges and changes ourselves in our personal life. But the fact remained that the time away from the business for two key employees had a significant impact on it and for us to argue that it doesn’t is disingenuous. When companies are looking to hire full time employees, they are hoping for stability at that position for a couple of years.
I would never and have never discriminated against somebody because I thought they were likely to be planning a family. Life comes first, parenthood is incredible and kids are the best. And as a small business owner, one of the ways I can compete with bigger companies for talent is to offer more flexibility and humanity than they can. But I do believe that it would be fair and reasonable as a business owner or hiring manager to seriously weigh up the factors involved in hiring somebody who was confirmed pregnant and had a maximum 6 month window before a potentially 12 month period of uncertainty over the hiring of somebody (when all other factors remain equal) who was more likely to be in the position for a longer period of time
Well said and there lies the issue – a fair and equitable value exchange that goes both ways. Pregnant mums not feeling the world appreciates them. Businesses stretched, twisting and turning to support people with kids and those people just leave when they feel like it.
An Equitable value exchange is what should be put on the table. Instead of it’s all about me and screw the rest – goes both ways.
When one party doesn’t support the other we all stop caring.
Great read, thanks for sharing. It doesn’t stop when your baby pops. I took a short 4 months off to have my first baby and when I returned I asked if I could work a day at home (one less day expressing milk in the toilets at work). The then female CD said “Sorry no, you should have arranged that before you came back”. This same lady is now (since having her own children) a very vocal supporter of working mums and flexible hours. That was over ten years ago but you still hear stories like that today.
There is a huge degree of sexism alive in recruitment in the communications industry. I say this as a recruiter who is also a single mum, business owner and feminist. This is not an example of sexism though, merely business pragmatism. The agency was new, therefore striving, possibly struggling, to establish itself. It may not be large enough to smoothly cover a mat leave…hard in a big company. They could not hire someone who was going to be absent in 6 months for a period of 6 months or longer. This is commercial sense. This was an important hire, required to build solid relationships with clients. Continuity would be key. I would also ask why the writer is waiting for a response, as opposed to proactively chasing the agency.
The other popular trick is to make the young Mums redundant whilst on maternity leave. A weasel trick to say the least.
This is unfortunately a too common occurrence in our industry. I recently interviewed after having a child and was upfront about my need for a small amount of flexibility (1 day working from home). It was used as the reason not to hire me despite being a perfect fit for the role. This was also from a female interviewer and boss who prides herself as a female mentor.
Other professional industries that also require long hours (ie finance and law) are far ahead of us in terms of offering flexibility and support for working mothers. Why should mothers who want to work and who have worked hard for their entire careers be discriminated against? We have a lot to offer – I only hope the tide will turn in our industry to recognise ability and experience over family situation.
honestly, I think this is less about discrimination and more about fear.
agencies are terrified of not being seen to be on call 24/7. while often the people requesting flexibility are parents returning to work, agencies regularly say no to 4 days a week, flexi hours and working from home to people of all ages, genders and domestic scenarios
Finance and law…..hmmm, have you checked the revenues/profits/rates in these industries against the shrinking budgets/margins in advertising and communications?
How about we allow flexibility to be granted to both employer and employee. Large companies with a lot more wiggle room to provide flexibility (to anyone) are the logical place to go for those seeking this.
Let’s not apply these strict rules to every business with more than one employee. Righteousness and proving a point at the very real cost of small businesses going bust seems a pointless exercise.
Some companies can afford this stuff, some can’t. It’s not that complicated.
Staying anon above makes a great and very real point for someone who saw both sides of this discussion. One size does not fit all.
I would ask readers to consider the ‘real world’ practicality of what is being reviewed here.
It sounds great to support women in this situation. Practically, it causes more problems, which, when provided with a more practical solution… other male or female candidates, would make sense to the business. Remove the pregnancy from the story and she would have a legitimate reason for taking up the case.
Be honest…… How would you feel in the situation where you’re already under the pump…. A pregnant woman starts, then after a few months of her being on the job, you have to take on the additional work load.
You’d be pretty miffed at your boss….
This! I have been in the same position – but on the hirer side and my decision was based on what was best for the team… And it was pure coincidence the person we ended up hiring was male. It’s nothing to do with discrimination but all to do with ‘what/who’s the best solution’!
That exact situation has happened at my agency. I felt I could actually trust what management preaches about supporting employees and they extend the same protection to everyone. Pretty good deal.
The absolute elephant in the room is the fact employment opportunities are tough to get in Advertising. Or has that point been overlooked. The reality is if you’re not offering 100 percent, the queue lining up behind you is. Next!
Unrelated but kind of related story:
I work for a large company, and last week they made enormous structure changes, promoting 3 women to the top. I was thinking: “Yes, go women! So proud of this company!”
And then I realised none of them had children.
Meanwhile I have been in the same role for 8 years and struggling to make any sort of career progression. I have 2 young kids and absolutely no support, I cannot work the required 12 hours they expect of me here (Performance reviews are always great! But this is not translating in terms of promotions).
I am making peace with it, and I rejoice in the fact that I won’t die alone (unless my kids hate me).
“Rejoice in the fact I won’t die alone”
That’s just as nasty as Anon Woman’s original comment.
Did it ever occur to you that the childless harpies might just be better at their jobs than you?
Absolutely, however as I stated ‘my performance reviews are always great’ – but maybe not great enough?
Of course they are better at their job than me, probably helped by the fact they do not have children to tend to!
(And the last comment was a bit of humour, chill out!)
Why in the blue moon would a company hire someone who is already pregnant?
Well said.
Well, for contract positions, an awesome pregnant woman could do brilliant things in 6-8 months – I certainly did when I became pregnant with my first child just after quitting a job. Thankfully I had a great employer who was confident I could complete the 6 months. And my time spent at occasional dr visits was less than the CDs usually spend at the pub on a Friday afternoon.
Companies need to think a bit more creatively about how to recruit and retain top talent despite where they may be in the fertility cycle.
I went on to work for them after mat leave too. Win-win all round.
I saw this type of thing happen to not one but two of my (extremely talented) ex-colleagues and as a 28 year old without any baby plans yet I left agency life so it couldn’t do this to me when the time came. I’ve had several young friends tell me they’ll do the same. They’re not just losing great working mums, they’re losing girls who might not even have kids. Adland, it would pay to think about the messages you’re sending to your young staff who know they can get better salaries, career progression and working hours elsewhere. I’ve been grateful every day of the past 2 years I got the hell out when I did.
Sounds like you dodged a bullet there. Better you found out this company were not supportive of parents before you started, than after you had the baby.
I can personally relate to some of this article. After being made redundant 2 weeks before I was due back from maternity leave, I found it tough initially to find quality roles offering part-time. But I landed on my feet with my current employer who were very much open to part-time and offer flexible working for parents and care-givers. I was even told I could bring my baby to my interview! There are good companies out there, so keep the faith…
This is, unfortunately, typical of the low level of mentality or, put another way, the general lack of enlightened thinking of senior agency management in this country.
What really upsets me is agency managements’ whinging and (successful) lobbying to the government about “lack of local talent” and thus the need to extend the old 457 Visa stay for our overseas brethren to 4 years for this industry. I’m all for diversity in the workplace, particularly in the media – but the pool of execs coming in is not exactly diverse, is it?
This, when so many segments of the highly qualified potential employment pool with local market experience and knowledge are ignored and excluded.
It’s not just young mothers – there’s another huge pool out there (both male and female but I would argue a female bias). This is the over 40’s. As one female colleague put it, “If you’re female and not the MD by the time you’re 40, you’re fkd! ”
But even then those that remain are few and far between.
This is, unfortunately, typical of the low level of mentality or, put another way, the general lack of enlightened thinking of senior agency management in this country.
What really upsets me is agency managements’ whinging and (successful) lobbying of the government about “lack of local talent” and thus the need to extend the old 457 Visa stay for our overseas brethren to 4 years for this industry. I’m all for diversity in the workplace, particularly in the media – but the pool of execs coming in is not exactly diverse, is it?
This, when so many segments of the highly qualified potential employment pool with local market experience and knowledge are ignored and excluded.
It’s not just young mothers – there’s another huge pool out there (both male and female but I would argue a female bias) – and this is the over 40’s. As one female colleague put it, “If you’re female and not the MD by the time you’re 40, you’re fkd! ”
But even then those that succeed to the very top are few and far between. At the same time there’s a whole pool of young mothers and experienced older (but not ancient) hands in this industry, keen to stay in the industry (even in the mid-senior levels) and give it their best – who may as well be invisible.
So the Agency gave this woman a job offer for the 3 month contract position… with a possibility of perm. Then she called up to say she’s pregnant and can’t roll on to perm, (which isn’t actually on offer), until after the baby… so they rescinded the 3 month contract?
That doesn’t make any sense. And is morally reprehensible if true.
If the above is true that’s a fairwork ombudsman case any day of the week.
There’s a part missing in this story. She either had a 3 month contract to sign / written confirmation, or she didn’t.
This story sounds twisted in facts. The less qualified male getting the role comment raises the flags here. Of course it was going to be a younger less qualified male. Of course, otherwise this story doesn’t have enough bite to it.
Mumbrella… honest question. Is there any fact checking going on in these anonymous sources to verify credibility to their stories? Are you in dialogue with them and getting proof? It sounds like there was a contract/offer from this person’s side of the story. Did you ask to see it?
Can confirm (and have verified):
-Written offer, inclusive of salary package etc. for initial 3 month period
-Written correspondence citing reasons for rescinding offer as pregnancy, and therefore “timing not going to work long term” for the agency.
-Role was in fact given to a young male.
@Can this be verified by Mumbrella, it would be a shame to misconstrue the desire to remain anonymous as a convenient excuse to twist facts in order to tell a good story. The risk of jeopardising career prospects is delicate enough – that is the sole motivation for withholding my name.
You can stay anonymous… I’m just asking mumbrella if they have verified.
And if you do have written correspondence, then you should totally name and shame. Just black your name out. You have proof. This isn’t he said she said, where intentions can be misconstrued. No one is going to be on the side of the agency in this one.
I’m sorry if your story is true and you feel like you have to defend, but 2 days prior to your article, mumbrella literally posted a comment from reddit as an article. There’s a large bucket these stories are getting pulled from. You shouldn’t have to defend this story now that it’s published. Mumbrella should. I’m asking them, what did they do to verify.
Anonymous is not a woman. It’s a desperate editor trying to show how popular his site is by creating fake articles about the most topical issues of the moment. Sadly, a lot of people fall for this horse shit.
Hi there,
I do love a good conspiracy theory!
Unfortunately, Tim is neither the editor (he is in fact the content director), nor the author of this piece.
I like your creativity though.
Thanks,
Vivienne – non-desperate Mumbrella editor
Thanks Vivienne. I didn’t mean to imply that you are desperate. It just seems all too convenient that these non-verified, anonymous posts are always about the most sensitive and divisive issues. Others may call that click bait. Given Tim’s past, that’s why I assumed it was him. Please accept my apologies.
NPT
As an agency that mostly hires female staff in management roles, I’m stunned to read some of these comments (I’m a bloke by the way).
Our staff all get profit share and when they have kids, they have flexible work time to do what they need to do. After all, we’re adults and we know what needs to be done in our private lives as well as at work.
Never had any of the issues raised in the comments below. The idiot that wrote the offensive message about ‘legs crossed’ just shouldn’t be posting in this type of forum. He doesn’t get it and probably never will.
Women are amazing contributors to a workplace. In general, their balanced, hard working and get the job done. It wouldn’t worry me in the slightest if I interviewed a candidate that was pregnant or looking to start a family.
Being pregnant makes you more female? That’s not how it works.
Thats right… these days you only have to identify as a female to get pregnant.
The reality is that parental leave and parenthood will remain a career-limiting move until the other 50%* of parents step up and start demanding it. It’s utterly myopic that we can’t see how vital it is to support all parents as they nurture the next generation (who after all, we will rely on to care for our ancient, unemployable, dependent selves in the future..let’s hope they don’t repay us in kind) – and it’s obvious that agencies are missing out on great talent and the diversity which leads to insightful, effective creativity.
Yes, there are biological differences which mean mothers generally bear the brunt of the care during the early months of a baby’s life, but parenthood is a marathon, not a sprint, and there are so many dads who wish they could be more involved in caring for their kids, and kids who miss out on a deep relationship with their fathers.
The current set-up hurts us all. It creates economic, social, psychological and spiritual harm to a huge swathe of our society – and the worst part is that this problem has a solution.
If mothers could take the first few months off, their partners the next few months of a child’s life, childcare was subsidised, and genuine flexibility was available to both parents, we’d have a less stressed workforce, happier future generations, more meritocratic hiring practices – and thus better work.
This needs federal support and a radical re-think, but there are countries which have given equal rights and support to all parents with excellent results.
I work very hard to make flexibility work for my employer, which means they get the very best from me when I’m working, and my family get…a reasonable slice of me when I’m not. (It’s not only parents who need time away from their desks to bring an invigorated, focused self to work, but that’s a whole other can of worms..)
Being sidelined and passed over in favour of less talented but more ‘available’ staff needs to stop: being made redundant on maternity leave has happened to so many women it’s an absolute disgrace – it’s happened not only to me, but to at least 70% of the adland mothers I know. Enough is enough.
To the barricades comrades!
Mumbrella, I am confident that if you were to carry out some research into your audience you’d find some truly dreadful experiences – why not get some data behind this?
*with apologies to single and same-sex parents.
All sounds good on paper. Back to reality- some agencies can hire not -always-there parents – some can’t.
There’s a sense of entitlement that somehow pregnant women should be employed. And it’s a “disgrace” if not. The reality is much more severe – there are just not enough jobs in the industry. This whole thread keeps implying there’s some sort of employment utopia. The list of “who” agencies should be employing seems to ignore the hard state of the real world.
I got married, 2 months later won award school, scored my first job copywriter job at a big agency and immediately found out I was pregnant. Needless to say I had a termination. Had to make a shitty choice but really, it was the only one i could have made. sad.
As others have said, discrimination doesn’t stop at pregnancy. I worked at a big media agency (ironically with one of its directors a working mother that ‘champions’ working women) for a number of years with no problems. However things went downhill after coming back from a brief mat leave period. I was told not to come back unless I was at my desk 5 days-a-week from Day 1 of returning (meanwhile back in the day the Director worked from home a few days a week after her mat leave, only transitioning to 5 days much later). Then the bullying started soon after I was back, to manage me out… making my working conditions miserable by picking apart every project I was on, exaggerating every tiny mistake, exclusion etc – even though this level of criticism was not targeted on anyone else in the team. Some other new mums in the company had similar experiences where they essentially got demoted after mat leave or made redundant. I now work at another more supportive agency but take comfort in the fact there is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.
Two sides to every story….the role was always intended to be 3 months (trial) to permanent with the first 6 months focused on mentoring and training. When the author of this article said they were pregnant they only had around 4 months to work in the role until leaving on maternity leave. It was not viable for the agency to hire someone going on maternity leave so soon and they were considerate in communicating this openly to the author (who seemingly understood) This is just a drama piece for drama sake but does raise an interesting topic around gender equality and how we treat working mums and dads.
It is true that there are two sides to the story, and that it’s a tough one from the business’ perspective.
But this is a very important discussion to have and needs to be analysed closely and honestly.
It is interesting that ultimately, the agency never communicated their decision, nor did they acknowledge the courage and candidness of the candidate in being upfront about something that most others would have kept from them.
Which side does that present?
I noticed in one agency I worked for that all the females in higher positions are childless and for most part single. I noticed the older females in lower positions all had children and were very much capable and the experience for a higher position.
This was very off putting as a young female staff member, considering children in 10 years time (very far off, I know). Did I want to still offer this company my loyalty if another opportunity popped up? Not really when it won’t be given back to me if I made a mini-me. And I wasn’t the only young employee who noticed this too.
I have worked with some rockstar mum’s, who are bloody incredible at what they do. Equally I have worked with some sub standard mum’s. Same applies to men, women, hetro, gay, white, black, blah de blah. I couldn’t give a fck whether tou are a mum are not. If you are smart, knowledgable and you can apply what you know and get the results we need: welcome aboard!!
I think what businesses are trying to protect against is what is happening at a good friend’s place of employment right now. They have four women pregnant at one time. Two are in the same department, the two others are the sole employees at their position. It is a small business and there will be overlap in maternity leave. It is absolutely crippling for the business and qualified applicants, even temporary ones, are very few and far between. To their credit, it is a very forward thinking company, but it can’t be understated that businesses need to protect themselves and all of the employees when it comes down to it. I have worked for a number of businesses where women have been hired, immediately gotten pregnant – taking full advantage of healthcare and even some paid leave, then left the company – tens of thousands of dollars and hours of training wasted. Businesses need to protect themselves not from the majority, but from the minority. As a woman, I’ve been treated nothing but fairly through my pregnancies at work, but i can see why this thinking happens the way it does.