re: Lets talk abuse of maternity leave

quote:

---

Yeah it does. We've got a guy in my office that is away on military leave (so obviously we are holding his job for him). He'll be gone a grand total of 14 months. I just KNOW that he'll come back for a week or 2 and decide he wants to pursue something else and put in his notice.

---

Should treat both your guys temp replacement and ALL maternity leavers temp replacements the same: in training for transition to FT employee. Knowing that these people do this all the time, plan appropriately. Be sure any temps hired/contracted to "fill in temporarily" are worthy of being replacements for the "on leave" persons.

It's what I do when in management in these situations. Get rid of the temps if they are not able replacements, as that's what they will turn out to be. Just never, ever, say it out loud to anyone! Don't even tell your bosses that you think like this, even if they ask. Verbally say No while shaking head "yes", with a wink.

It's not any different than them beginning working there later than they had and returning for more time.

Giving birth is a pretty big deal, it's not uncommon to have to make changes. Mother's hormones can be all over the place and some newborns require more attentive care

quote:

---

Yeah it does. We've got a guy in my office that is away on military leave (so obviously we are holding his job for him). He'll be gone a grand total of 14 months. I just KNOW that he'll come back for a week or 2 and decide he wants to pursue something else and put in his notice.

---

The ONLY thing men who come home from deployment want is stability. We don't want to have to frick around looking for a job and shite. This dude ain't bailing on you.

Stop hating America, a-hole

Paid maternity leave is bull shite anyway even if they don't leave after they come back

quote:

---

Stop hating America, a-hole

---

the problem is we don't have "temp workers", his duties got divvied up amongst the 2 other people at his position, of which I am 1. Oh btw, the other person that was splitting the duties left 2 weeks ago for a different city, so now I'm essentially doing the entirety of original dude's job plus my own. I'd like to pretend I'm superman but in reality he doesn't have a ton of stuff to do nor is it that hard.

My big gripe if things play out like they suspect is that we could have had a replacement doing this work this whole year where instead it's burdening the rest of our staff. But I'm really just venting here, as he hasn't actually quit yet so of course nothing can be done.

Unfortunately some people will abuse the system. Companies could always state that back pay will be provided for the 2 or 3 months once the employee returns for a certain amount of time.

This is the issue with maternity leave in general. My wife got 12 weeks unpaid from her company, but her manager (also a woman) told some others in the office, wait and watch her not come back at all.

In Canada they get 6 months maternity leave paid by the government, although you cant take up to a year off. The problem there isn't the money (it's paid via your tax dollars that you previously put into the system basically). It's the fact that the company has to either split your duties among other employees waiting for you to come back, hire a temporary employee, or just eat a loss of certain tasks during that time. When a woman changes her mind about coming back whether she played the system knowingly or just decided after 3 months with the baby, she screws the company again, because now they have to either continue splitting the tasks or hire someone on short notice and lose efficiency for even longer.

At my work, I was unfortunate enough to just have my coworkers entire work load basically dumped on me, and even when she came back, she didn't take it back on until the next year, so I still had to work overloads for another 3 months.

meh, most women who come back aren't good workers anyway. Give 'em the two months and have them hit the road.

I'll take his job

It may not be planned. My maternity leave ended in March, and I am on unpaid leave until next month. The reality of leaving my preemie in the care of someone else gets heavier every day. I am going back to work regardless as my job has been very understanding and my hours have been changed from FT to PT, but I imagine some women choose not to return to work after the fact. If I had to go back FT, Idk that I could bring myself to do it, honestly.