Yes, those things can happen too.
But regardless the OP was discussing a small business with maybe 3-4 people tops and he cannot afford to have a person off for a month regardless of the reason. Instead of going after my response tell us… what would YOU do?
This is exactly why maternity leave should be treated like any other sick leave. Thanks to people pushing and pushing for employers to bear the financial burden of pregnancy, young women have a tough time getting hired, regardless of laws prohibiting holding their potential for pregnancy against them. Maternity compensation should come from taxes, not employers.
Since the business has only 3-4 employees and is therefore not subject to a whole bunch of laws, he or she can do exactly what he or she would do if a 50 year-old employee had a heart attack after working for 6 or 7 months. Hire a temp or hire a replacement. The only difference is that in the case of a pregnancy, the employer has some advance notice.
Well along those lines, what if the young woman is self employed and needs to take time off from work to have a baby?
Why would that be any different?
With an employee, you know they work 40 hours a week at $10/hr, so you pay them $400/wk while they are out on pregnancy leave.
But a self-employed person could work the same 40 hour weeks and in good years make $1000/wk and in bad years lose $1000/wk. There is no fixed rate of pay to judge against. She just collects the profit or loss of the business after paying all expenses and all other employees. I guess you could say something like “pay her the average profit of the business over the last year.” But what if that profit was actually a loss? Would you require her to pay the government while she was out on leave?
Or it could just be calculated as if she was making minimum wage. Or it could be a standard amount unconnected to her normal earnings–after all, if she makes more money, shouldn’t she be able to kick in more on her own?
The idea that the employer should magically be able to pay someone who is not producing work is completely idiotic and directly penalizes the employer for hiring people who seem like high risks of suddenly “needing” to be paid for time not used for work productivity.
I would hire the most capable person for the job, like the OP did; if she turned out to need pregnancy leave, I’d do my best to keep the job open for her, like the OP did; as suggested by others, really the only thing I’d do differently would be to have the terms clearer when she went out on leave.
I might also supplement by writing Congress and asking for a national maternal / paternal leave program, like civilized countries, but I’d have low expectations there.
Contract Houses work like temp agencies. They charge more than the regular salary to find and put someone in the position for two months. That’s often undoable for a very small business.
Psychobunny, I understand your pain.
I had a female employee become pregnant a year or so after hire. I really liked her and her family, both at work and socially. She came to me very late in her pregnancy and tearfully told me she needed to stop working until after the baby came.
Legally I could have hired a replacement. Instead I (and my other employees) worked a little harder. I sent flowers. We hung a picture of the baby at work. We all bitched and moaned a little about having to cover for her.
About two weeks after delivery she came back to work. Her husband and mom rearranged their schedule so they could help cover baby care. Maybe once a month baby came to work and we all enjoyed seeing her.
Baby started third grade today. 
[Rene Russo] You are a good man. [/Rene Russo] The Thomas Crown Affair
No kiss, though.
Hire a lawyer. (Even if it is smaller than 15 employees, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were an attempt to sue. And prepare for serious negative publicity)
Let me clarify the situation a little.
I have 2 employees.
Employee 1 has worked for me for 12 years.
The only reason I even knew that employee 2 was pregnant was that employee 1 asked for a few days off 5 months in advance and I approved it and then employee 2 piped up “Oh-she can’t take that time off, I’ll be on maternity leave”.
I periodically asked employee 2 what her plans were for her maternity-she said “well, my Ob/Gyn told me I’d probably miss 6 weeks or 8 if I have a C-section”.
She continued to offer no further information. I had to ask her about her due date, and when she expected to be off. I also asked her about child care and she told me that she and the friend (who is really more like a relative) were sharing the same childcare provider.
When I hired the friend, my employee said she was going to stop working then because her OB had told her to rest. I asked if she knew if and when she planned to come back and she said she could not predict. With her last paycheck before leave, she also included a note requesting all sick leave and vacation accrued be paid out as a lump sum with that paycheck, which I did, even though it did strain my finances.
We expected to hear something about when the baby was born but only found out when we were talking to the friend and found out that the child was born. We then sent a gift and card with the friend and got a report back from the friend that it was delivered and was appreciated. I know the friend was in tough with her because I saw pictures of the 2 children together.
When the childcare fell through for the friend, I asked if she knew what employee 2’s plans were. She stated that employee 2 was arranging alternative childcare and planned to be back “sometime in September”.
Meanwhile, employee 1, who I cannot afford to lose, basically told me that if she had to work by herself for 6 weeks she would quit. (The office can run with one employee for a few days but it cannot run like that indefinitely).
I cannot afford to hire a temp. The temp costs roughly 50% more than my employee. If I then want to hire this person, I have to pay the agency a flat fee of 20-25% of the yearly salary. (I looked at three different agencies and all of their contracts and they were all similar). In addition, to hire a temp I would still have to go through the entire interviewing process and then employee 1 would have to train the temp, which would mean more work for her. If employee 2 did not then return from maternity leave, either employee 1 would have to train another new employee or I would have to pay several thousand dollars (which I cannot afford) to keep the temp.
I can’t hire someone and tell them they may or may not have a job in a month. Nobody would take that job and we can’t afford the time and money to train somebody to only work for a month.
Having no further options, I hired a new person. Meanwhile, I decided to give employee 2 the full 6 weeks she had said she would be taking (she apparently did not have a C-section) and then determine what to do if she then planned to come back.
This is where I should have called to check in. However, when she didn’t contact us after 6 weeks, I gave her 2 more weeks and when I still had heard nothing I sent her the e-mail.
I agree that it was cowardly but I couldn’t face talking to her on the telephone. To be frank, I was a little angry that:
-She never volunteered that she was pregnant or asked for maternity leave
-We had to pester her to find out when she was leaving or how long she planned to stay out
-She assumed that we would pay all accrued vacation and sick leave (which I was intending to do) but that we would pay it as a lump sum in advance
-She made no effort to keep us appraised of her condition
-When she knew we were stuck with only one employee she did not bother to check in to see how we were doing
-When she knew that she was losing her childcare provider and she knew that we were aware of this she did not bother to let us know of her new plans
-She stayed out longer than she had initially told us she would and did not let us know of when she expected to be back
I probably am spoiled by employee #1. Not only does she request vacation several weeks in advance (and we do have an official form to request leave, which employee 2 never actually submitted), but she has been known to come in on a vacation day without being asked when another employee was sick.
In addition, the last time I had a pregnant employee, she requested leave ahead of time, told us she thought she would be out for 3 weeks, and came back after 3 weeks even when we told her we could plan for 6 weeks. She also kept us updated on her plans.
To be honest, I don’t know if employee #2 assumed that FMLA would assure her of a job on her return, but I really didn’t want to have to argue the law with her. In addition, her work had really suffered the last few months and employee 1 frankly does not want her back.
That said, I can’t win.
If I hold out indefinitely for employee #2, I have to keep stringing the new employee along which is unfair to her.
If I hire employee #2 back, I then have to fire the new employee in favor of someone who has not shown any company loyalty and has demonstrated that I cannot rely on her when she says that she will be available to work. In addition, I upset employee #1.
If I fire employee #2, I look like I am discriminating against a new mother.
I decided to apply the same test I would to anybody who took sick or disability leave for another reason. If they told me they would be out for 2 weeks and made no effort to contact us after an additional 1-2 weeks, I would fire them.
As far as discrimination goes, the majority of working certified medical assistants are actually young women. If I were to discriminate against someone it would be a male. Luckily, the situation has never come up where I had a male applicant who was appropriate for the job but I do worry. I have several patients who come to me because I am a woman. In some cases, they specifically see me because their religion forbids them to undress in front of a male who is not their husband. To do the job, my assistant must help me with procedures that require the patient to be undressed. Is it discrimination to not hire a male because my business depend on patients who specifically come to me so they can see a female physician and staff?
As far as a lawsuit goes, she has no case.
FMLA does not apply because I have fewer than 50 employees and she worked for me for less than a year anyway (7 months).
I am applying the same standard I would apply to any other employee with a short-term disability, so the ADA does not apply.
This is an at-will state.
I have 20+ years in practice in this area; I doubt that one disgruntled employee could do much harm to my practice but I did offer her a reference anyway.
Doesn’t mean I still don’t feel like crap.
I once hired a woman who was in her 60s. She begged/cajoled/cried and I felt bad and hired her even though she lacked experience, had no computer knowledge, and was very slow (sloth-like).
She required more than 3 times the typical training period, and even then constantly asked for help, but by this point I was invested in her “making it” so I kept encouraging her.
Then her adult son became ill. She began taking days off first to visit him in the hospital, then to help with nursing care in his home, then to attend his funeral. Then she quit because she “no longer had anything left to live for”.
Having a small business sucks!
I don’t think artificial wombs would make much of a difference for most women. The bigger problem is finding childcare after the baby’s born; especially infant care. Nanny-droids would make a bigger impact, but they’re even further off than artificial wombs. Government subsidized daycare and crèches are a much more realist options, but they come with their own problems.
psychobunny, she’s exhausted and conflicted and is also having trouble arranging day care. I, too, think a better approach would be a written letter (followed-up with an email and telephone call) stating you will need to replace her if she cannot return by a certain date, or at least tell you her plans. The “I can only assume …” approach can be seen as either hostile or passive-aggressive, and I don’t think you are either.
Your business is such that your employees cannot work from home?
I once had your faith and optimism.
I am old enough to remember long debates on whether to wear wedding bands to job interviews, both men and women. The general agreement was that it would be best to arrange the interview outdoors in February so you could wear gloves.
This is a medical practice and these are medical assistants. I do not think working from home is an option.
And working from home doesn’t she wouldn’t still need to arrange childcare. My employer has very strict requirements to work at home. Among other things your work station has to been in a separate room with a locked door, and no child/pet/other person can enter the room during working hours. Also if children are home during the day you must provide proof that there’s another adult present to watch them; you can’t just stick them in another room and tend to them as needed. Basically other than the dress code all the exact same rules apply as if you were in the office. I’ve had several co-workers get busted for violations and had to go back to being in house.
oh, well, let me give you more advice on how pregnancy effects women, any how.
No, even if you have enough medical record work, the electronic security requirement would be prohibitive, wouldn’t they?
Our requirements aren’t nearly so stringent; we just have to answer our emails, and keep the noise down during meetings.