Have young woman rendered themselves unemployable?
Discussion
Posting from phone so don't have the links to hand.
Over the past few weeks, from various news sources, there have been stories of woman winning a lot of legal battles over maternity leave, stories of changes in terms and conditions for pregnant mothers and white papers going through to allow (effectively) child rearing in the office.
Now obviously these are stories, and a white paper is not considered to be an incoming law, but it does mean it could potentially be.
Amongst a circle of friends that, like myself, own and operate a small business, it is now an unsaid rule that generally, employing a woman of child bearing age would simply not happen. Most of these people are family men with children, so unlike me are not as biased against children in an employee operational capacity.
So, is this going to become a problem for the future? In my mind, if I had a male and a female interviewee, of both similar skills and qualifications, to me the male would be less potential risk.
Over the past few weeks, from various news sources, there have been stories of woman winning a lot of legal battles over maternity leave, stories of changes in terms and conditions for pregnant mothers and white papers going through to allow (effectively) child rearing in the office.
Now obviously these are stories, and a white paper is not considered to be an incoming law, but it does mean it could potentially be.
Amongst a circle of friends that, like myself, own and operate a small business, it is now an unsaid rule that generally, employing a woman of child bearing age would simply not happen. Most of these people are family men with children, so unlike me are not as biased against children in an employee operational capacity.
So, is this going to become a problem for the future? In my mind, if I had a male and a female interviewee, of both similar skills and qualifications, to me the male would be less potential risk.
Well of course we're not allowed to say so, because even thinking such evil discriminatory thoughts is liable to end us up in a tribunal, but I share your view entirely. In the last 3 years we've had >15 people off on mat leave, so in most cases more than one at a time, and it's hard to plan when you're not even allowed to ask what their plans might be.
I have 4 project managers, all young women, 3 recently married and one just engaged. I think we can all guess what's going to happen next...
I have 4 project managers, all young women, 3 recently married and one just engaged. I think we can all guess what's going to happen next...
miniman said:
Well of course we're not allowed to say so, because even thinking such evil discriminatory thoughts is liable to end us up in a tribunal, but I share your view entirely. In the last 3 years we've had >15 people off on mat leave, so in most cases more than one at a time, and it's hard to plan when you're not even allowed to ask what their plans might be.
I have 4 project managers, all young women, 3 recently married and one just engaged. I think we can all guess what's going to happen next...
You'll have to change their last names on all your personnel files?I have 4 project managers, all young women, 3 recently married and one just engaged. I think we can all guess what's going to happen next...
If it's just one, lone woman you speak of, I think it's highly unlikely we have much to worry about. 
However, if it's women who are at liberty to distract the rest of the workforce by bringing in their little Britneys and Kyles into the office, then I'd agree with your sentiment.
It's hardly come as a suprise though. First the vote, now this. Who the hell let them out of the kitchen in the first place.
However, if it's women who are at liberty to distract the rest of the workforce by bringing in their little Britneys and Kyles into the office, then I'd agree with your sentiment.
It's hardly come as a suprise though. First the vote, now this. Who the hell let them out of the kitchen in the first place.
Many companies don't employ women for this very reason, the same as they don't employ men over a certain age. It's very difficult to prove any kind of discrimination. Simply factors like 'we felt this person fiitted into the team and the culture better than the other person (woman, older man)'. Ageism is particularly rife and extremely difficult to prove.
I don't think it is so much a problem for the future as an increasing one that's gone on for some time.
When recruiting for my small, one other police officer, office manager and six staff, my office manager pointed out that we already had two women of childbearing age and another would be impossible to manage.
So we knew full well that no woman under 45 stood a chance. We still had to interview a cojple of them to show we weren't biased so we wasted everyone's time. This was in 1997/8.
The odd thing was that whilst some departments got a pull about having no young women I was never approached about having all seven of my civilian staff as women. Equality, it seem, only goes so far.
In the next department I ran I was obliged to leave recruiting to my officer manager - PFI - and she, a woman of childbering age, said straight off that there was no way she would employ someone who might take maternity leave. That was 2002. And things have, I am assured, got considerably worse.
A friend of my wife got a child minder when her husband left her whilst she was in hospital having their third child (not particularly relevant when he left her I suppose). She wanted to get back to work so she didn't have to live of ex-hubby and she had good earning potential. The child minder then got pregnant. She ended up having to pay for two child minders and it meant, she pointed out, that she was working for around the wages you'd get in a Macjob.
A chap at my rugby club runs a small business, less than 50 employees. There was a rather obviously lesbian woman who sparked a bit of a laugh when he said that he was always willing to employ gay women as they were much less likely to have babies.
He reckoned, as he kept accurate records, that young - he's about 55 so probably women up to 40 - take nearly 30% more sick leave than men, have time off to have kids, will sue you if their office chair isn't high enough and, according to him, dress like 'sluts' and then take time off under stress because a male colleague said how nice she looked.
He reckoned that it cost more than a quarter more to employ women, and that's without equality of pay. he was, at the time, talking of selling up.
He too reckoned, as you can guess, that he avoided, as far as possible, employeeing young women.
When recruiting for my small, one other police officer, office manager and six staff, my office manager pointed out that we already had two women of childbearing age and another would be impossible to manage.
So we knew full well that no woman under 45 stood a chance. We still had to interview a cojple of them to show we weren't biased so we wasted everyone's time. This was in 1997/8.
The odd thing was that whilst some departments got a pull about having no young women I was never approached about having all seven of my civilian staff as women. Equality, it seem, only goes so far.
In the next department I ran I was obliged to leave recruiting to my officer manager - PFI - and she, a woman of childbering age, said straight off that there was no way she would employ someone who might take maternity leave. That was 2002. And things have, I am assured, got considerably worse.
A friend of my wife got a child minder when her husband left her whilst she was in hospital having their third child (not particularly relevant when he left her I suppose). She wanted to get back to work so she didn't have to live of ex-hubby and she had good earning potential. The child minder then got pregnant. She ended up having to pay for two child minders and it meant, she pointed out, that she was working for around the wages you'd get in a Macjob.
A chap at my rugby club runs a small business, less than 50 employees. There was a rather obviously lesbian woman who sparked a bit of a laugh when he said that he was always willing to employ gay women as they were much less likely to have babies.
He reckoned, as he kept accurate records, that young - he's about 55 so probably women up to 40 - take nearly 30% more sick leave than men, have time off to have kids, will sue you if their office chair isn't high enough and, according to him, dress like 'sluts' and then take time off under stress because a male colleague said how nice she looked.
He reckoned that it cost more than a quarter more to employ women, and that's without equality of pay. he was, at the time, talking of selling up.
He too reckoned, as you can guess, that he avoided, as far as possible, employeeing young women.
Silver993tt said:
Many companies don't employ women for this very reason, the same as they don't employ men over a certain age. It's very difficult to prove any kind of discrimination. Simply factors like 'we felt this person fiitted into the team and the culture better than the other person (woman, older man)'. Ageism is particularly rife and extremely difficult to prove.
In a lot of circumstances, I do believe that older people are not suited to certain jobs. Such as a young sales team of some kind, dealing with a product to a young market. It may actually hurt sales in some respects.Obviously not true in all cases, I have worked with some really cool older guys (70+) who are all there and with it, but it is fairly rare IMO.
Its a lot different for an SME than a Large organisation, a lot nowadays have built in cresh facilities for the little ones, my Sisiter works in a Hospital drops her little one off down stairs does work pops to see him etc... Having been a small business owner I see where your coming from Carrot you will get hundreds of SME's with Male and old women workforces!
I have two 20 something women working for me at present in a sales environment. I also have two 20 something men.
The women are repeatedly off ill due to 'women's problems' late due to falling out with their boyfriends, and on many occasions have had to be sent home from work due to non stop crying for the above reasons.
I will never employ young women again, especially in a sales environment where pressure is always on, targets need to be hit. It's my job on the line at the end of te day.
[/possible sexist rant]
The young blokes on the other hand are perfect, always hard working and target driven.
Just need to find 2 more now....
The women are repeatedly off ill due to 'women's problems' late due to falling out with their boyfriends, and on many occasions have had to be sent home from work due to non stop crying for the above reasons.
I will never employ young women again, especially in a sales environment where pressure is always on, targets need to be hit. It's my job on the line at the end of te day.
[/possible sexist rant]
The young blokes on the other hand are perfect, always hard working and target driven.
Just need to find 2 more now....
2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:
Tis an unfortunate fact of life that all the legislation has probably had the opposite effect to that intended.
This.My personal opinion is that until men are allowed to have the same amount of time off for their wife's pregnancy, we will never come close to equality for this topic.
I believe in some other countries you are allowed to split the maternity/paternity leave between both parents. This is a better system, but then I guess it could lead to ageism instead.
Derek Smith said:
A friend of my wife got a child minder when her husband left her whilst she was in hospital having their third child (not particularly relevant when he left her I suppose). She wanted to get back to work so she didn't have to live of ex-hubby and she had good earning potential. The child minder then got pregnant. She ended up having to pay for two child minders and it meant, she pointed out, that she was working for around the wages you'd get in a Macjob.
That's just s
t management though. Why did she offer more than statutory maternity cover? (Which can be reclaimed AFAIK.)Haighermeister said:
[/possible sexist rant]
If it didn't happen, then it's sexist. You're just stating actual events so I don't blame you. The whole notion of maternity leave scares me. Why would any small business owner want to pay for two people to do the same job, namely one to go on holiday for 10 months and the other to do the actual work? On minimum wage, wouldn't that be like setting fire to £10k (ok, it may go down as the government picks up part of the tab but it's still burning money)?Bill said:
Derek Smith said:
A friend of my wife got a child minder when her husband left her whilst she was in hospital having their third child (not particularly relevant when he left her I suppose). She wanted to get back to work so she didn't have to live of ex-hubby and she had good earning potential. The child minder then got pregnant. She ended up having to pay for two child minders and it meant, she pointed out, that she was working for around the wages you'd get in a Macjob.
That's just st management though. Why did she offer more than statutory maternity cover? (Which can be reclaimed AFAIK.)I take your point about her mananagement skills.
SusPol at Brighton paid removal expenses for an accountant from the Midlands. She arrived, went on various courses and the fell pregnant. At the end of her maternity leave she handed in her notice. She'd spent something like 20% of her time at Brighton actually doing some work, presumably fairly well although I have no idea.
Despite no one knowing her as she was upper level her going away do the eats and non-alcholic drinks had to be paid for by the division otherwise there would be all sorts of criticism about sexism or perhaps, that ultimate wrong thing, acting reasonably. I'd worked out that no one would bother to attend so I went - I'd met her once when she'd arrived - and so could stuff my face with chicken wings.
Her speech was the most patronising one I'd ever heard. All a bit of a laugh really. Thank goodness it wasn't my money paying for the woman to milk the system.
ShadownINja said:
Haighermeister said:
[/possible sexist rant]
If it didn't happen, then it's sexist. You're just stating actual events so I don't blame you. The whole notion of maternity leave scares me. Why would any small business owner want to pay for two people to do the same job, namely one to go on holiday for 10 months and the other to do the actual work? On minimum wage, wouldn't that be like setting fire to £10k (ok, it may go down as the government picks up part of the tab but it's still burning money)?Yertis said:
ShadownINja said:
Haighermeister said:
[/possible sexist rant]
If it didn't happen, then it's sexist. You're just stating actual events so I don't blame you. The whole notion of maternity leave scares me. Why would any small business owner want to pay for two people to do the same job, namely one to go on holiday for 10 months and the other to do the actual work? On minimum wage, wouldn't that be like setting fire to £10k (ok, it may go down as the government picks up part of the tab but it's still burning money)?BliarOut said:
Yertis said:
ShadownINja said:
Haighermeister said:
[/possible sexist rant]
If it didn't happen, then it's sexist. You're just stating actual events so I don't blame you. The whole notion of maternity leave scares me. Why would any small business owner want to pay for two people to do the same job, namely one to go on holiday for 10 months and the other to do the actual work? On minimum wage, wouldn't that be like setting fire to £10k (ok, it may go down as the government picks up part of the tab but it's still burning money)?
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