6 Impossible Things, I think you’re being a bit harsh on PB. She was trying to make the correct decision for her business needs rather than make a bad decision and suffer with it. As it is, she does have to suffer with letting herself get pulled in to the emotional side of things.
PB, when making business decisions, you have to take the emotions out of it for the best result for your bottom line. I understand wanting to keep the better performing eimployee and understand needing someone in the meantime. You could have just advertised for a 3-month position that might be extended and not caused the emotional issue. This way, you get the help you need and the person doesn’t have expectations that the job will last more than 12 weeks, only the hope. When that date is reached, you can make a decision to offer them part time or let them go if your bottom line indicates it.
So now you’ve had a major learning experience. Learn from it and move on. Don’t berate yourself or let others berate you for what is already done. We’re all just practicing in this life anyway.
I think the issue was that psychobunny delayed making the decision and then implemented it poorly by not being direct, by not saying directly “you are being / will be terminated because …” People often are less than direct in an attempt to avoid confrontation, with unfortunate results. Not that the decision itself was incorrect.
If you read my post in a sexy voice carnut it’s not so harsh at all; and the ultimate decision is STILL yet to be made. I don’t think that helps anyone - least of all employee #1.
Nailed it, j666. The best way to guarantee an incorrect decision is by not making one.
When someone here (Norway) decides to take on the new and more challenging task of producing a new taxpayer, they are entitled to either 48 weeks of leave at 100 % pay, or 58 at 80 %. 10 weeks have to be taken by the mother, 10 by the father, the remaining weeks are up to the parents to allocate.
This is paid through an institution we call “taxes”. To keep sufficient funds coming in, it is important to have a large fraction of the population as working taxpayers, hence the production of such are very important. As is making sure people stay working after having a kid.
For a small healthcare business, such as where I work, this normally means we hire someone to cover the job for that period. We’ve done this a couple of times in the last years.
Traditionally, you hire someone just out of uni to cover a maternity or paternity leave. Many, perhaps most graduates got their first job, experience and references this way.
This saves us money, as a new hire will start lower on the pay scale than the experienced person who is off with the baby. It also insures that we don’t have recent hires reproducing while covering a maternity or paternity leave. Because the 80% or 100% wage is worked out as an average of your last three years income as reported to the tax-man. If you didn’t have a wage, you get 100 % of zero. The system heavily rewards working.
Sometimes having to train new people can be inconvenient, especially if several workers get pregnant in the same period. In a small business. We do save money off it though, and… we got our first job this way. It would be poor form to grumble about others doing what we benefited from.
The Op asked how it was done in other countries, I explained how it is done here, since we are a similar type and size of business and have had three employees have a total of five kids in the last ten years. Plus two other leaves of absence.
The fact that you’re still laying blame on your employee is boggling my mind. You are the boss. But you let this woman walk out the door:
[ul]
[li]without ascertaining the date when (or if) she intended to return[/li][li]without clarifying your leave policy (which seems to not exist, at least not formally, which is a problem)[/li][li]without creating a plan for when or how she should contact you if her situation changed, as is highly possible when dealing with pregnancy and childbirth[/li][li]without ascertaining the best means of official contact with her regarding job-related issues, which would never have included “via the friend who’s filling in” or “on the note included in a baby gift” because this is not how professionals conduct business[/li][/ul]
And you acknowledge that you knew about her pregnancy literally six months before any leave was going to need to take place.
You fell down here, literally for months, and you’re trying to blame her for not thinking about you while she was recovering from birth and caring for her new baby. You’re suggesting that focusing on something that requires 100%+ of her attention (as compared to you, who should have required 0% of her attention at the time) was tantamount to resignation.
It seems like you’ve taken advantage of the fact that as a small business you’re exempt from the employee protections required at larger companies. But you still employ people, which means that things like this should be formalized. You should have an employee handbook that clearly delineates your leave policy and a documented procedure for using it. You own a business. You employ people who expect to be treated fairly and professionally. You need to act like it.