Employing women of 'baby-making' age

[NorthernBoy]

srebbe64 said:

What has fairness got to do with anything? When was the last time Government was fair? Gonvernments are intrisically unfair - it's what they do best (well after waste and stupidity). However, that's the lay of the land and all businesses (ie (UK) competitors) have to play by the same rule book.

I wonder, if these people are getting such an advantage, as they see it, by breaking the law and discriminating against women, just by how much they are outperforming their peers.

From the way they post, it would seem that they are avoiding crippling costs that their more far-minded competitors must bear. Can we assume that they really are reaping the reward?

Or is their contention, that this is crippling small businesses, utter boocks?

No need to write in replies to this one, I feel.

[Ordinary Bloke]

NorthernBoy said:

Ordinary Bloke said:

Look, if you just need a monkey to press a button/answer the phone/put things in boxes then it's just a matter of how generous you are on maternity pay.

If you are recruiting a delicious female rocket scientist, ..

A decent proportion of the people working with me at CERN were female. Fortunately, the people there were reasonably enlightened when it came to employment practices.

I suppose this is why they lag so far behind the other scientific institutions.
Oh, wait, hang on. Sorry, no, you go that one completely wrong too.

You're consistent, I'll give you that.

Were you in that Dan Brown book?
PS: Are you really a boy, by the way?

[srebbe64]

NorthernBoy said:

srebbe64 said:

What has fairness got to do with anything? When was the last time Government was fair? Gonvernments are intrisically unfair - it's what they do best (well after waste and stupidity). However, that's the lay of the land and all businesses (ie (UK) competitors) have to play by the same rule book.

I wonder, if these people are getting such an advantage, as they see it, by breaking the law and discriminating against women, just by how much they are outperforming their peers.

From the way they post, it would seem that they are avoiding crippling costs that their more far-minded competitors must bear. Can we assume that they really are reaping the reward?

Or is their contention, that this is crippling small businesses, utter boocks?

No need to write in replies to this one, I feel.

I'm in favour of my competitors not employing the top performing women, long may it continue!

[NorthernBoy]

Ordinary Bloke said:

Were you in that Dan Brown book?
PS: Are you really a boy, by the way?

That's right. That novel featured real scientists who worked there over a decade before it was written.

I am certainly male, but too old to be called a boy anymore. In a similar vein to your question, though, are you really as misogynistic as your posts imply?

[NorthernBoy]

srebbe64 said:

I'm in favour of my competitors not employing the top performing women, long may it continue!

Me too. I have an image, though, of "ordinary" bloke's position of which he boasted, actually being a bloke looking surprisingly like Bill Maynard in "The Gaffer", working from a shed in slough, and so not exactly competing for the next bond issuance with mine.

But I accept, of course, that I may be doing him a great disservice, and that "If you're a Manager in a large Multi-national business (like me)" was not just the normal internet warrior crap, and possibly he does work in the tower across the street, with his team of all-male rocket scientists.

[Ordinary Bloke]

Sorry, don't know what misothingy means.

Simple economics. If you run a small business, paying let's say £40K for 4 employees, then having to pay £50K the next year is liable to hurt. So of course there's a reluctance to employ females in the 20-45 bracket.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand why. Or a particle-accelerating scientist.

Nice part of the world, CERN, my company is based nearby and I often drive past. We have around 50M employees so can afford to pay maternity pay, but if you think average Joe running a small business can ignore gender then I think it's your particles that need accelerating!!!

[NorthernBoy]

Ordinary Bloke said:

Nice part of the world, CERN, my company is based nearby and I often drive past. We have around 50M employees so can afford to pay maternity pay, but if you think average Joe running a small business can ignore gender then I think it's your particles that need accelerating!!!

Depending how you define it, my team has between six and fifty people in it, and we most certainly do ignore sex.

Gender refers to the social characteristics associated with sex, so ought not really to be used when discussing questions of male/female.

And I never got on with the area around CERN. Meyrin is not a great part of the word, and I did not much like the centre of Geneva, either, what with the way it was set-up so that it only worked if you had a wife at home to do the shopping. Terrible place to be a working woman, funnily enough. Not a nice place to be black, either.

[Ordinary Bloke]

Meyrin, Ferney Voltaire, Saint Genis, lovely part of the world. I don't discriminate on the basis of sex or colour, I don't even mind particle physiscists but you have to admit if you have candidate a) Male or candidate b) Female of childbearing age then even a f^ckwit would associate a higher risk (read higher cost) with b)

Unless maths changed since I got my degree?

Accelerate THAT!

Edited by Ordinary Bloke on Monday 19th November 00:40

[NorthernBoy]

Ordinary Bloke said:

Meyrin, Ferney Voltaire, Saint Genis, lovely part of the world. I don't discriminate on the basis of sex or colour, I don't even mind particle physiscists but you have to admit if you have candidate a) Male or candidate b) Female of childbearing age then even a f^ckwit would associate a higher risk (read higher cost) with b)

Unless maths changed since I got my degree?

Accelerate THAT!

Edited by Ordinary Bloke on Monday 19th November 00:40

I don't think it is sensible to talk about two candidates being identical, except for their sex, as they never are. There is always one who is better, and I am happy to say that I have always chosen based on which one I think could do the job best.

There would be more risk with an older person, too, or someone who had previously had cancer, but, again, I would not let that affect my decision. I don't agree that it makes business sense to ever pass over the best candidate, and morally I could not agree with it either.

Frankly, if my business depended on employing only super-fit twenty something males, I would probably think that I should head back and re-do the numbers to find some extra margin, as it was too close to he wire to make it worthwhile.

[Ordinary Bloke]

Not sure you're in the real world, but very commendable. I have just found the cheese and crackers, so I'm feeling very positive. Bon soir!

[H_Kan]

srebbe64 said:

H_Kan said:

NorthernBoy said:

Ordinary Bloke said:

If you're a Manager in a large Multi-national business (like me), can you tolerate the inconvenience of losing an employee for 12 months?

Hard to tell, really. Reading that job description, it sounds like you have progressed to having all five stars on your badge, and are ready to step away from the deep fat fryer, and delegate this mission critical task. In which case, I can see that you can rotate the staff and thin them out a bit.

On the other hand, in a business like mine, I'd take on someone to cover the gap, and grow the business sufficiently in the year that there was a role waiting for the happy mother should she wish to return.

Clearly such an attitude sits poorly in the realms of some of the managers on here.

One thing you are missing is that not everybody wants to grow businesses etc. I know people who run small shops etc. who are happy working their 9-5 and earning a comfortable living from the place. The reason they do this rather then try to expand to a chain of shops etc. is because they are happy with what they have. In this instance they may run the place with help from 2 staff, so in this instance they can ill afford to pay for temporary cover and pay the wages of somebody not physically working for them. This is where the law falls down as it is quite indiscriminate about the resources a company or employer can call upon.

In some ways it's no easier for a larger company than a small one because the proportions are likely to be similar. If a small company employs four people, one of whom was "in the child bearing zone" so to speak, there's there's a chance that the company will be without 25% of its staff for a period of time at some future date. Equally, if a large company of, say, 1000 had the same breakdown then there's a chance that 250 people will leave for a period of time. It's called "running a business".

Edited by srebbe64 on Sunday 18th November 23:37

I'm not saying that discrimination on the basis of gender is correct, my point is that the current ML law is very harsh on small employers and knowing a number of small business owners I also know they cannot afford such an outgoing and as such would understand why they may discriminate on this basis.

It is also correct to say that every company has a similar proportion of women of a child bearing age, but you still need to look at this in the relavent context:

If my business has 5 employees and makes a profit of £50k then having to pay ML would mean this would go down circa 20% to £40k. If my business had 50 employees and made me 500k profit then this could feasibly go down to 400k. The proportions are the same but if the owner has to make do with 400k instead of 500k then this is a lot easier to deal with then a drop from 50k to 40k.

It's a simplistic example I know, but I hope you can see the point I'm trying to make in so far as larger firms are much more capable of dealing with things like this, which is why I feel the law should reflect this.

[Gordon Brown]

What do other small businesses think? Easy when you are an employee to support the need to be 'objective and fair' e.g. others on maternity leave or with flexible working ( unless it means you doing their job) but when your business and therefore livlihood/mortage/home/family may depend on it all the 'fairness' and 'best person for the job' speeches can ring a little hollow IMHO.

Flexible working is easier as you have the right to refuse it after due consideration and after outlining why it isn't feasible.

The HR work I do isn't on the legal side but the question we have used for all potential employees is around what is expected of them. So, you outline the job to ythe applicant (duties, hours, commitment to key projects etc) tell them what you need and then ask them if there is anything that would prevent them fulfilling their known obligations/duties.

They might say that they have a 6 week holiday planned in the middle of a key project and I might therefore choose not to employ them.

[BliarOut]

NorthernBoy said:

Ordinary Bloke said:

Meyrin, Ferney Voltaire, Saint Genis, lovely part of the world. I don't discriminate on the basis of sex or colour, I don't even mind particle physiscists but you have to admit if you have candidate a) Male or candidate b) Female of childbearing age then even a f^ckwit would associate a higher risk (read higher cost) with b)

Unless maths changed since I got my degree?

Accelerate THAT!

Edited by Ordinary Bloke on Monday 19th November 00:40

I don't think it is sensible to talk about two candidates being identical, except for their sex, as they never are. There is always one who is better, and I am happy to say that I have always chosen based on which one I think could do the job best.

There would be more risk with an older person, too, or someone who had previously had cancer, but, again, I would not let that affect my decision. I don't agree that it makes business sense to ever pass over the best candidate, and morally I could not agree with it either.

Frankly, if my business depended on employing only super-fit twenty something males, I would probably think that I should head back and re-do the numbers to find some extra margin, as it was too close to he wire to make it worthwhile.

Do you pay for maternity leave and the continued use of a company car etc out of your own pocket?

[Size Nine Elm]

IMHO its a question of proportion.

A larger organisation can reasonably predict the overhead of maternity leave - I don't know of someone here has the figures, but lets assume 1 in 20 employees is on maternity leave. This can be built into budgets, plans etc.

Take a small business with 4 employees. Unfortunately statistics dont allow a fifth of an employee to be away on leave, so the actual impact is 25%, not 5%.

From previous experience in building up a software company, we hit 50 employees before we actually had to deal with our first maternity leave...

[plasticpig]

Gordon Brown said:

What do other small businesses think? Easy when you are an employee to support the need to be 'objective and fair' e.g. others on maternity leave or with flexible working ( unless it means you doing their job) but when your business and therefore livelihood/mortgage/home/family may depend on it all the 'fairness' and 'best person for the job' speeches can ring a little hollow IMHO.

Flexible working is easier as you have the right to refuse it after due consideration and after outlining why it isn't feasible.

The HR work I do isn't on the legal side but the question we have used for all potential employees is around what is expected of them. So, you outline the job to the applicant (duties, hours, commitment to key projects etc) tell them what you need and then ask them if there is anything that would prevent them fulfilling their known obligations/duties.

They might say that they have a 6 week holiday planned in the middle of a key project and I might therefore choose not to employ them.

The problem does not come from paying SMP. The problem comes from having a key member of staff disappear for up to a year. In a lot of industries a year is a long time and there may will be a period of time after they return to work that they are not 100% effective as they have to catch up.

In a worse case scenario you could have someone who decides to have 3 kids. They take the 2 weeks off before birth and fifty weeks afterwards. Six moths after the first child is born they get pregnant again. So they return to work for 12 weeks and then go back on maternity leave for another 52 weeks. They repeat the process for the third child.

So for 3 /12 years of employment they are actually at work for 6 months.

[superlightr]

Interesting reading.

We - my wife and I employ 4 full time and one part time people. So we are a small business.

Srebbe - with due respect for a larger firm I can understand what your saying but would (did) you take that risk with 4/5 staff instead of 140?

Northernboy - I understand from what you post you are an employee. To put into perspective for me at least, Is it your livelyhood on the line if you employ the wrong person? how would it affect you, your team, your income, if number of people in your team go on ML?

It would be very hard for us to cope with a full time on ML, what if 2 went on ML? or all 4? the business would shut.

We are not looking to grow as we are happy with the income/lifestyle we have. Hopefully I wont be critised for this view as it is something we have looked at very carefully. growth/risk/cost/red tap.

Nor should we be forced to grow if we dont wish. We are employing 5 staff. If we wernt here those 5 would be in the job market, less tax, etc.

We are not running a business that is so tight not to be worth doing but the more regulations that eat into your profit/ risk of expenditure will get to the stage of asking if running a small business is worth it with all the hastle from the government.

The employment legislation is weighted too far for the e/ee. If the aim of the govt was to encourage growth and enterprise we must reduce the restrictions that are placed on e/ors. I would love to open a 3rd office but the risks of employing more people is too great for me. Its not the work thats hard its the managing or people thats hard.

Im sure there is a critical mass of e/ee for a firm when it is sensible to be open in your thinking. The govenment makes laws for the large firms imho, not for the small business. The policy makers are institutionised, they dont work in a small firm, and do not think through the policies and how it will affect small firms.

We have had 2 children and a 3rd on the way, did the wife take maternity leave, ha ha ah ha ha ho ho ho,

Edited by superlightr on Monday 19th November 12:16

[Griff Bitch]

Don said:

Then there's the situation of the genuinely "little" firm. Just a few employees. These businesses can often barely afford to pay the wages - let alone pay benefits for an employee that isn't present.

The employers don't pay the maternity pay, the government does and they compensate the employers with 4.5% for their troubles.

[NorthernBoy]

BliarOut said:

NorthernBoy said:

Ordinary Bloke said:

Meyrin, Ferney Voltaire, Saint Genis, lovely part of the world. I don't discriminate on the basis of sex or colour, I don't even mind particle physiscists but you have to admit if you have candidate a) Male or candidate b) Female of childbearing age then even a f^ckwit would associate a higher risk (read higher cost) with b)

Unless maths changed since I got my degree?

Accelerate THAT!

Edited by Ordinary Bloke on Monday 19th November 00:40

I don't think it is sensible to talk about two candidates being identical, except for their sex, as they never are. There is always one who is better, and I am happy to say that I have always chosen based on which one I think could do the job best.

There would be more risk with an older person, too, or someone who had previously had cancer, but, again, I would not let that affect my decision. I don't agree that it makes business sense to ever pass over the best candidate, and morally I could not agree with it either.

Frankly, if my business depended on employing only super-fit twenty something males, I would probably think that I should head back and re-do the numbers to find some extra margin, as it was too close to he wire to make it worthwhile.

Do you pay for maternity leave and the continued use of a company car etc out of your own pocket?

As I am paid based on the profits, yes, I do.

[NorthernBoy]

BliarOut said:

NorthernBoy said:

Ordinary Bloke said:

Meyrin, Ferney Voltaire, Saint Genis, lovely part of the world. I don't discriminate on the basis of sex or colour, I don't even mind particle physiscists but you have to admit if you have candidate a) Male or candidate b) Female of childbearing age then even a f^ckwit would associate a higher risk (read higher cost) with b)

Unless maths changed since I got my degree?

Accelerate THAT!

Edited by Ordinary Bloke on Monday 19th November 00:40

I don't think it is sensible to talk about two candidates being identical, except for their sex, as they never are. There is always one who is better, and I am happy to say that I have always chosen based on which one I think could do the job best.

There would be more risk with an older person, too, or someone who had previously had cancer, but, again, I would not let that affect my decision. I don't agree that it makes business sense to ever pass over the best candidate, and morally I could not agree with it either.

Frankly, if my business depended on employing only super-fit twenty something males, I would probably think that I should head back and re-do the numbers to find some extra margin, as it was too close to he wire to make it worthwhile.

Do you pay for maternity leave and the continued use of a company car etc out of your own pocket?

As I am paid based on the profits, yes, I do.

[BliarOut]

NorthernBoy said:

BliarOut said:

NorthernBoy said:

Ordinary Bloke said:

Meyrin, Ferney Voltaire, Saint Genis, lovely part of the world. I don't discriminate on the basis of sex or colour, I don't even mind particle physiscists but you have to admit if you have candidate a) Male or candidate b) Female of childbearing age then even a f^ckwit would associate a higher risk (read higher cost) with b)

Unless maths changed since I got my degree?

Accelerate THAT!

Edited by Ordinary Bloke on Monday 19th November 00:40

I don't think it is sensible to talk about two candidates being identical, except for their sex, as they never are. There is always one who is better, and I am happy to say that I have always chosen based on which one I think could do the job best.

There would be more risk with an older person, too, or someone who had previously had cancer, but, again, I would not let that affect my decision. I don't agree that it makes business sense to ever pass over the best candidate, and morally I could not agree with it either.

Frankly, if my business depended on employing only super-fit twenty something males, I would probably think that I should head back and re-do the numbers to find some extra margin, as it was too close to he wire to make it worthwhile.

Do you pay for maternity leave and the continued use of a company car etc out of your own pocket?

As I am paid based on the profits, yes, I do.

Nope, that's not what I asked and I'm assuming you're intelligent enough to be able to differentiate.

I'm sure that if you had to pay for someone to be on maternity leave directly from your own pocket you'd think twice about it. Either that or you're a fool.