Five news poll on how maternity legislation impacts on businesses

[fivenews]

Hello,

Five News is producing a report on meternity legislation and its impact on small businesses. As part of this we are trying to poll people who run their own business. If you could take a second to respond on this forum, I would be grateful. You can either resond directly on this topic thread or email me.

You response will be kept completely anonymous. However, if you feel strongly about this subject and would like to be interviewed, you can also email me or phone me on 020 7800 2742.
The poll question is...

Would the current maternity legislation make you think twice before hiring a woman of child-bearing age ?

Many thanks,
Emma

[Indizine]

child bearing age being (realistically) on average 18-35 these days..... and a few either side of that...how can you avoid employing women of child-bearing age??!!

[RedEvo]

It's a really tough one. The flaw in the legislation from where I'm sitting is the assumption that it's easy to find a temporary replacement. We train our own staff because the skills are specialist and not readily available in the market.

It's totally unrealistic to expect a small business to be able to fill a specialist role then ditch the specialist they have trained a few months later.

That said I'm not saying women should leave when they have children, I'm simply saying it's way more complicated than the legislators seem to realise.

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