Baby on Board

Q: Last spring, we hired a new salesperson at our home furnishings store. When we hired her she didn't mention that she was two months pregnant. By October she was complaining that she couldn't be on her feet all day, yet she didn't want to stop working because she needed the money. It was a real dilemma trying to reconcile her health concerns with the store's needs. Did she deceive us by not telling us she was pregnant? Could we have let her go when we found out?

A: Pregnancy and childbirth have always presented complications in the working lives of women. But specialty stores couldn't survive without female employees. At some point, most retailers will face the challenge of accommodating a pregnant employee while continuing to meet the store's needs. The retailer above had to deal with three issues:

• Is it illegal to discriminate against a pregnant woman in hiring?
• Can a woman be terminated for being pregnant?
• What accommodations must be made for a pregnant employee?

While it's certainly useful to know whether an applicant is pregnant when hired, a potential employee is not required to divulge that information. And not hiring an applicant on account of her pregnancy or terminating a woman because of pregnancy could expose you to sexual discrimination charges from the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission. However, if your shop has fewer than 15 employees, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act amendment of 1978) may not apply to you. Check with your state Department of Labor to be clear about what regulations apply to your store.

If complications from pregnancy make working impossible, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act states that you must treat the pregnant employee the same way you would treat anyone unable to work due to injury or illness. If you allow disabled employees time off with or without pay, the same consideration must be extended to pregnant employees unable to work. Some states require temporary disability insurance that covers time off from work resulting from medical problems including pregnancy.

But most women are able to work well into the third trimester. Try to accommodate your pregnant employee by providing seating for her when standing isn't essential. Temporary job sharing with an employee not on the sales floor is another option. Flexible scheduling with a shorter workday might also benefit your employee by limiting the time she spends on her feet.

Q: The gift shop at our ski resort is run by a very capable young woman. We were surprised to learn that she's going to have a baby in six months. Of course we're happy for her, but we're worried about how we'll manage. We've never had a full-time employee get pregnant before, and don't know how to handle her leave.

A: Ideally, your employee handbook should have a policy for maternity leave, but it's easy to see how you might overlook this if you've never had a pregnant staff member. It would be good to develop a policy to cover present and future pregnancies.

Your first goal in creating a maternity policy is to be fair to your employees while protecting the needs of your business. In most cases you want to make it easy for the employee to return to work after the baby is born. Because retailers' wages often don't stretch to cover full-time childcare for a newborn, part-time hours may be preferable for mothers coming back to work. By offering that as an option, you're more likely to retain a seasoned employee. If an employee does plan to return to work full-time, try to hold a position open for them. Although this is difficult for small shops, it could help you keep an experienced staff member.

The expense of retaining full-time employees through maternity is one of the reasons that the law covering maternity leave — the Family Medical Leave Act of 1993 — only applies to companies with 50 or more employees. The law mandates up to 12 weeks of unpaid medical leave for maternity, paternity, adoption, and caring for a sick child, spouse, or parent. It limits these benefits to employees who have worked for the same employer for 12 months and at least 1,250 hours during the past year. Some states have less restrictive policies regarding eligibility. Again, check with your Department of Labor.

The Family Medical Leave Act also states that an employer is not required to hold a position for the top 10 percent of highest paid employees on staff. Many employers who offer health, disability, and life insurance allow employees on maternity leave to continue coverage and accrue other benefits for a certain period, such as two or three months, with the assumption that they will resume work full-time. Sick days and paid vacation are often used to provide income. It's up to you to decide what to offer, and what course of action you wish to set for employees who don't return to work full-time.

Of course, all of this dry talk about policies ignores the fact that a member of your work family is about to experience a major life event. One of the joys of creating such relationships is being able to share the happy moments in each other's lives. By all means, do what you can to be supportive of your employees' pregnancies, and celebrate little ones' arrivals as the miracles they are.