Quick quiz: You have 35 employees. One of your junior analysts is pregnant. Do you have to allow her to take 12 weeks off for childbirth, recovery, and bonding and provide her with the job when she returns?
To read the answer click here: Think Employment Law Doesn’t Apply to You? Think Again.
(This is at Inc.com so the mobile site works!)
As an HR Manager in Seattle I’m also reminded to check state and municipal laws as well.
Absolutely. You can’t just assume anything.
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I love the last paragraph, EHRL. I think in our haste to be “compliant” sometimes we lose focus on being able to recruit and retain good employees.
Absolutely! And we have to be careful not to resent it when employees take legally authorized leaves, etc. If we don’t like the law, we should talk to congress. But don’t be cranky when an employee takes advantage of it.
On a related note, recently there has been a bit of an uproar over the remarks of Facebook’s COO – a woman – , who has opined that employers should have the right to ask female candidates whether they intend to get pregnant in the foreseeable future. I have my own thoughts on this, but I’d be interested to see what Evil HR Lady has to say.
I’m a strict free market capitalist. I think that if you want to run a business that doesn’t hire pregnant women, you should be allowed to do that.
Then women who want to have children will not work for you and you will miss out on some great employees.
I realize this may destroy my warm and fuzzy reputation.
I agree. If I know that an employer is not “family friendly” then I don’t want to work for them. As a prospective employee, I wish they’d publicize this info. That way I don’t end up working there, loving my job, and then becoming frustrated when my employer gives me flak about taking FMLA after giving birth, using my PPL to take sick kids to the doctor, or asking to use vacation during Spring Break. Thankfully, my current employer is family-friendly, but I have worked for companies that were not. Wish I’d known that before I had accepted the offer of employment.
Exactly. I just think people should be required to be honest. I know companies that manipulate their data in order to be included in Working Mother Magazines top 100 places for working mothers.
So, you’re a working mom and you read about all the perks you get at Company X. You apply and get hired and then find out that, oh no, that’s only for 3 people at Corporate! Oh yes, we have flex time. That means you can come in any time between 8:00 and 8:30!
Just tell me. “This job will pay very well, but you cannot use sick days to take care of kids. You may not leave early for a soccer game or parent-teacher conference. You do not want to be the primary caregiver for a child and work here.”
Then I won’t apply!