For the sake of women, families and business, we have to bust the myths about maternity leave. I heard a depressingly familiar comment last week from a friend who works in a company with fewer than ten employees.
“We’d avoid hiring a woman in her late twenties or early thirties, particularly if she had just got married,” he admitted. “We simply can’t afford to pay someone’s salary for a year.”
Of course they can’t, but who is asking them to? The biggest myth surrounding maternity leave — that it inflicts a painful cost on employers — is pervasive and dangerous. If it hampers employment opportunities for talented female workers (illegally, but who’s checking?) that is not just bad for them, but bad for business too.
True, women who have been in continuous employment for six months 15 weeks before they are due to give birth are entitled to statutory maternity pay. It is set at 90 per cent of their earnings for six weeks, then at £135.45 for a further 33 weeks. But all of that, and a bit more, can be claimed back from the Government by small companies.
They are entitled to get back 103 per cent of all that they pay out; larger companies can get 92 per cent. The extra is to help with administrative costs. Yet when my friend talked of having to cover a full salary for a year, no one — not even those whose jobs involved employing people — challenged him.
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I’ve heard variations on the same theme time and again. Perhaps even more common are woman friends who say they felt they had to slip their engagement rings into their pockets before job interviews. With good reason — remember Lord Sugar’s plea for employers to be able to ask female applicants about the issue up-front?
Of course maternity inflicts a burden on employers. Losing employees for an extended period can be a pain in a company of any size, as can be hiring replacements. But the financial hit is nothing like what rabid deregulators would have you believe.
And looked at in a more positive light, maternity leave can (particularly in larger companies) provide an opportunity to let workers temporarily fill different roles, boosting their confidence and skills. In one of my former jobs, I saw maternity cover open the door to an individual who became hugely valued; and the chance to work in a more senior position for almost a year had an enormous impact on my own career. When I take my own maternity leave this summer, I hope it will be a positive opportunity for someone else.
Of course, all of this is much harder for very small companies, but it is also in their interests to try to attract and retain the best female talent. Research from the LSE Centre for Economic Performance found strong evidence that family-friendly policies are associated with better performance overall. Perhaps that is why some employers offer enhanced maternity packages. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found that 39 per cent of public sector organisations and 15 per cent of private sector companies grant more than 16 weeks’ leave at or near full pay.
Unilever, for example, offers women who have worked for three years 40 weeks on full pay, and also promotes flexible, home and part-time working, job shares and career breaks. The result? A successful record in retaining talented women staff.
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Government figures show that 77 per cent of women return to work within 12 to 18 months of giving birth (busting a second myth, perhaps). Which brings me to another fantasy that angers me every time I hear it: the notion that the flexible parental leave being introduced by the coalition will somehow damage women’s prospects. Surely the opposite is true?
From 2015, the actual period of “maternity leave” will fall to 18 weeks from birth (although mothers can still take the longer period if they want). The rest of the time can be shared by both parents, with four weeks taken together. As 44 per cent of women now earn more than their partners, according to the Department for Business Innovation and Skills, the take-up for this may be high. And if one day any worker — male or female — can request a few months off, it will be hugely positive for women.
There is something deeply inconsistent about those who argue vociferously for companies to be freed of the so-called shackles of parental policies, but also claim to be passionate about the value of the family. Most women have to work.
If we want children to have strong attention from their parents early in life, then we must be ever more radical in the workplace. And we can start by busting the myths. Surely we can both pro-business and pro-family?