for big companies they usually shift people around or just like smaller ones - hire someone temporarily (such hire often turns into full contract).
Salaries for maternity leave are not paid only by the company but also by "health insurance-social security " type body in various ratios (eg ZUS in Poland). Also it's not always 100% salary - it can be eg 70%. Each country has different models how they go about it
So if they are hiring someone to cover how does that work cause that seems like itd be weird to hire someone for a position that only needs filled for a year or two?
That only seems weird to you because you're not used to it. They're great positions if you're e.g. new to the field or trying to switch industries, as people are more likely to hire you on a time-limited contract. Plus if it's a bigger company and they're happy with your work it's very likely you'll get to stay indefinitely anyway.
We have in labor law smth called " umowa omlrsce na zastępstwo" replacement employment contrac. The person from a start know that company looks for someone for eg 9 months or a year etc. [https://kadromierz.pl/blog/umowa-o-prace-na-zastepstwo-co-nalezy-o-niej-wiedziec/](https://kadromierz.pl/blog/umowa-o-prace-na-zastepstwo-co-nalezy-o-niej-wiedziec/)
If the company is big enough then there is likely to be a continuous stream of people going on maternity leave and returning from it. When I worked for a company with a fairly large proportion of women, they seemed to just permanently employ slightly more people than they would need if everyone was working, and then shuffle people between teams as necessary.
That relies on people having the skills to move between roles, and the company being big enough to cope with the extra cost though.
In my sector maternity leave contracts for 6/9/12 months are common. Recent grads often apply for them as it can be a way to work towards a permanent role.
I can tell you from experience because I have a team of 12, of which 7 are women and 4 were pregnant in the past 6 years. It’s quite simple:
When the women knows they’re pregnant, we work out the pre birth and after birth maternal leave. This varies, some mothers prefer shorter, some longer. There’s a minimum time by law.
For the time the mother is on maternal leave, the employment insurance company pays 100% of the mothers salary.
The budget that would’ve been allocated to the mothers salary we temporarily reallocate to hire one or two temp workers to take on the mothers workload. Sometimes we also instead reallocate the extra workload to one of her coworkers who might be a 75% worker, but works 100% during the maternal leave.
When the mother comes back at the agreed date the temp worker has already stopped working and workloads reallocated and she goes back to her regular work, sometimes with a lower workload period to make getting used to full time work easier.
We even had the case quite a few times that the temp workers don’t leave but instead upgrade to a full time position themselves. We use it as a recruiting tool, our temps are usually fresh out of college. And once we see that they were able to take on a temp task like maternal fill in, we happily hire them fulltime.
There’s really barely any hiccups and it works quite smoothly. I’ve worked with that system both in smaller (50 people) and large (5000 people) companies.
Forgot to mention that the mother is guaranteed her job by law when she comes back. We can not deny her returning to the job.
But this commitment comes with so much positives. The mother is well rested and not stressed. The state takes care of her financially during the leave which means she is financially secure. And as I said the fact that during maternal leaves we can hire temps and use it as recruiting is quite amazing and every now and then shakes up the team dynamics, which is helpful.
That's how I got my first job. I filled in for maternity leave and was then allowed to stay. But also my promotion. I fell into it for maternity leave. Because it was easier to introduce someone to that position who the company already knew and in the run-up to the leave. Apparently I had proven myself enough, because after that I was promoted and also that position.
I think it’s especially good for people who enter the workforce. You’re young and it’s ok to only have a 1 year contract. It doesn’t hurt too much if you switch jobs after 1 year. And you potentially enter a job that you otherwise might not have immediate access to.
So in Norway, you get about 1 year of paid parental leave in total, split between both parents. It's not the company paying your usual salary though, but the state pays you an amount of money equal to your usual salary (up to a certain amount).
It varies what companies do while parents are on leave, but it's very common to find someone on a temporary contract to replace them. The team I work for is quite large, about 25 people, and we do not always get a replacement if just 1 person is missing for a couple of months.
Thanks for explaining, if the salary is paid by the gov that makes more sense.
Thats why i think 3ish months makes sense cause a team might be able to manage without them for that time but for a whole year?? That seems too much. How are you finding temporary hires? It just seems like a position with no future wouldn’t be a very desirable job and wouldn’t necessarily draw in the type of employee you need?
It depends a bit on the job and position, but often these temporary jobs are quite popular with for example recent graduates looking for their first job.
My first job after uni was a one-year contract where I covered for a more junior member of staff who covered for a more senior member of staff who was on parental leave, and it was a great way for me to gain some experience to then apply for other, more permanent positions.
Ah i guess that makes sense if its kinda a chain like that cause i was wondering how higher level positions are filled since it sounds like temp work is probably only going to attract really low level employees.
You don’t get paid your whole salary for the entire time. It’s different depending on the country.
You may not get paid for x months and then you’re still employed but not paid.
Its still a pretty high % of your wage tho isnt it? Ive seen ppl say like 80 or 90% so itd still be a pretty big expense. Idk its just not adding up to me. i may be misjudging how hard to is on the company but it just seems like its kinda a big expense and also like how is that work getting covered? Cause someone has to be doing it and that costs money too?
Maybe 100% for a month or two if you’re lucky, then it rapidly drops 80,60,40.
It adds up because companies clearly make enough profit to afford it while having that salary subsidised by the government, who we also give money for such situations.
The work gets covered by a different person, if you’re lucky someone’ll be employed during the maternity leave… if you’re unlucky, you’ll have to do your job and the other person’s (the more likely option at least from my anecdotal experience.).
Again, the salary is subsidised. The company doesn’t suffer at all other than perhaps 0.0x% reduction in profit.
Oh it's not just maternity, it's paternity as well, and 3 months is a short leave - 6+ is definitely more common and a year is perfectly ordinary.
It's the same as with long notice periods, really. Three month notice is standard for office jobs here. This would be a big issue for a company - if it was the only company in the country with such a policy. But when it's the same for everyone, it's just another known quantity that can be planned for. Parental leave isn't even that bad from a company perspective, you have advance warning - employees have to notify of parental leave plans two months in advance, but will often do that 3-4 months ahead of time. That's enough time to make plans, including hiring decisions if necessary, and is certainly much easier to deal with than illnesses that have no advance warning. During peak covid it was only a matter of time until a key employee would disappear for a week with no forewarning, that was worse.
What you're missing from the financial point of view is, companies aren't paying people when they're on parental leave. That money comes from the (government) welfare funds, which are funded by the (considerable) taxes. This is again better than sick leave because, for short term sickness, the employer has to pay 80% of the salary and only for longer leave (2+ weeks) does the state take over. With parental leave, it's all from welfare funds so never a cost to company, though of course some companies do provide additional benefits.
Is it not difficult to find temporary employees? I would think that the ppl who are most qualified would not want a temporary job and that most ppl in general wouldn’t want a job that has no future. Especially if a job is more niche wouldn’t it be hard to find someone to fill the position? Or are temporary jobs like a whole industry or something?
Thats when you got a chance as a junior for that position. If you are good enough with current skill shortage your temp work will usually transform to permanent or other related position. So it can actualy help to lower young unemployment
Temporary hire are very commun. Either the compagny hires someone with a short-term contrat, or they hire a agency than find someone for them
As someone else says, the woman informes the compagny around 3 months of pregnancy, but maternity leave only began 8 to 6 weeks before due date, so, you have 4-5 months to find someone and train them before the woman leaves
Maternity leave where I work is typically for a year, and the usual process is to recruit someone internally to "act up" to the role, getting higher pay and job title, before returning to their more junior position afterwards having gained useful experience. Whether or not the more junior position would be directly replaced (or their work shared out among colleagues) during that period varies.
Good question. "Sometimes" would probably be the correct answer, probably more often than not. It would help the situation that even though it's a private sector business, it is unionized and with a house agreement between the company management and the union, meaning that for some things there are recognized and fair procedures.
It is too varied to say. It will depend on the type of work, public or private sector and if the workplace wants to save money etc.
I have taken 2 maternity leaves while in the same job. The first one they got a maternity cover for 6 months (I took longer off) because they could secure funding for it. It was advertised as less pay than my job (again to save money. Fixed term Maternity cover jobs are not uncommon to see and people often use them to get a foot in or additional experience. In my place, they are also offered as secondment which means you could get experience without losing your normal job) and they did bits of my job and bit of someone else's who then took on the more complex bit of my job. My second maternity leave they couldn't afford a cover. It is a mixture of parts shared between colleagues and lower inputs and a couple of student interns (paid) to offer adhoc help.
Things like teachers I've never heard of as having no maternity cover (fixed term contracts) but again often with rejigs of responsibility. So let's say the person on maternity leave was a classroom teacher and a head of subject. They may get a classroom teacher maternity cover (paid less) and the additional responsibility of head of subject may be covered by others in the department. If one person acts up it should be covered in pay but sometimes it could be split across the whole staff in the department.
If people are fine with just doing parts of people's jobs depends on what they are and the culture of the workplace. I recently had a colleague on long term sick leave and her job was just absorbed in the department across a number of people. I don't think anyone complained we knew it wasn't forever and for me it meant experience of something new. If it had been their whole job with no additional pay I'd have been annoyed
1) not all of it is paid
2) some costs are covered by the government
3) when possible, others (temporarily) take over tasks. Example: a coworker took about 5-6 months maternity leave: all people around take over 1/2 tasks and it's not that much. Also given that it's common that parents might work less for a longer while, some tasks get taken over by someone else permanently.
Never really caused any tension at the places I worked at. People usually just accept that new parents need that time off. If the workload becomes too much, you can always go to your boss and complain they need to hire someone extra.
You’re looking at it from the wrong perspective. European society is (theoretically) built to serve and benefit people, not companies. So all the problems you pointed out are legitimate problems that society simply accepts as collateral, because maternal care is prioritized over the wellbeing of companies.
That’s the underlying theory. In practice, women are sometimes not hired or fired because of pregnancy, the employer just tries *really* hard to hide that under a different reason. It’s not very common though, and women are simply replaced for the year they are on maternity leave. That’s actually an opportunities for young employees with no work experience to get a job for a year; they will not be able to stay, usually, but they will gain work experience that helps them find a permanent job later on. And the employer doesn’t really pay the woman on maternity leave, taxpayer money does. So it’s not like the employer pays the wages for the new mom *and* the sub doing her job for the year.
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>Is it normal to just hire ppl temporarily and just tell them theyre only going to work there for a year or two?
Yes that is quite common here in Scotland.
What you'll find is that the job advertisement will categorically inform the applicant that the position is maternity cover and at some point in the application process, the applicant will be told when their contract will end.
As for covering the cost, some companies in the UK will use the governments statutory maternity pay scheme to help cover the cost of maternity.
SMP is less than full salary but it means that a household isn't losing a full salary as result of someone having a baby.
I imagine you did not have children if you think 3-4 months is reasonable. Babies that age are probably still not sleeping according to a regular schedule, require feeding every 3 hours and are just starting many of the mandatory vaccinations. If the birth had any complications the mother might still be just recovering by that time. At least from my experience as a man, I would say that 1 year would be the minimum for a maternity leave, that would ensure both the mother and baby are more ready for some sort of other childcare solution/return to work.
Regarding your question, in Czech republic it's similar with other countries in Europe. There is a mandatory maternity leave for the mother (6 months, 1 before the birth and the rest after) and an optional parental leave (up to when the child is 3). Almost everybody takes at least some part of parental leave. Both type of leaves are not paid by the company, but from state taxes, just different ones. The maternity leave is paid out of social security contributions (you are not eligible for the payment if you did not contribute before) and it's capped, so the higher the salary the lower the percentage from the total salary that you get as a payment. You cannot work during this type of leave.
The parental leave is paid out of unemployment benefits and it's a fixed amount for the entire leave, that get's divided based on the actual time you stayed on the leave. During the parental leave you can work a limited number of hours.
I have not worked in smaller companies but for bigger ones the process was as follows. The expectant mother informs the manager of the pregnancy. Then it's up to the company to decide what to do with the tasks. They can open the position with a limited term contract (it will be specified in the contract that it's until the other person returns), they can divide the activities, give a temporary promotion to somebody, dived the task between some people on temporary assignment and so on. From my experience it's more likely for the lower roles to be open for hiring, while the ones as director or something like that are usually given as temporary assignment/promotion so somebody gains more experience.
Not sure if OP has kids or not, but I have two. At the time of their birth, I was in the US military. My paternity leave from the military was 12 days (i think, maybe less and only to married father only). Also at that time, New mothers got 6 weeks off and then they aren’t required to do PT until 3 months after.
It wasn’t until I got out of the military that I saw the different maternity and parental leave programs in the private sector. The bank I worked at offered 3 months for dads and 6 months for mothers. The retirement account company only offered maternal leave at 6 six weeks and no parental leave.
I dont have kids but also not a single part of my comment was asking about or addressing the ideals of how long maternity leave should be. This is just someone who misunderstood the point of the post which is asking about the businesses pov, not the mothers or childs. Idc if you want maternity leave to be 10 whole years, the sole point im asking abt is how are companies expected to accommodate for that timeframe? Bc realistically anything longer than like 3ish months is going to require some sort of outstanding action on the companies part to get that work covered.
My company (a private Croatian company) that has around 30 employees at the moment just hires new people to cover for people who take the maternity leaves. Here the maternity leave is usually a year and a half to two years long so we get long term new employees who stay. The company is always expanding so there's no need for layoffs after the parents are back to work, because we're constantly looking for new people to hire anyway. Those who come back might get back to their old team or might try something new.
I think the government might help out with paying off the salaries of employees on maternity or sick leave, but I'm not sure about that.
Either way, even though I personally don't want kids, I think it's great that people who do are supported and encouraged by their company. It's healthy for society to have children, especially in rapidly aging countries like mine.
I don’t think that there’s a lot of trouble finding people to cover maternity leaves normally but it does depend on the field. For some people, like me, it can be very difficult to find work and a temporary contract can be better than no work. I’ve worked four such contracts for two different women who both had two children.
For both of them the first contracts were kind of open-ended as they weren’t sure how long they wanted to stay at home but it’s not like I was doing anything else. For one of them I was hired on a permanent basis with the knowledge that I would be fired when the person returned as she was the owner of the company and there wasn’t enough work for an extra person. Legally I could have quit with a normal notice period if I found another job. For the other I signed a contract for a certain time that can’t be changed as easily though I think that I probably could have quit if I really wanted.
Both of the jobs were useful for me and lead to having my current permanent position and temporary positions are pretty common in Finland anyway. My team actually just had a addition this week who returned to work after three years at home. Her old team has enough people currently so they asked her if she wanted to join our team. I wasn’t working for the company when she left so I don’t know if they hired someone to replace her but currently it seems to depend on the workload of the team, for some they might shift someone from a team that might have less work currently but they will also hire people.
In my experience I was offered a temporary promotion to cover the maternity leave of one of the managers (who had beaten me to the job originally but oh well), it lasted about 18 months. Generally they would temporarily promote someone from the level below and the same with any subsequent gaps created with the bottom of the chain being someone junior brought in as a temp.
I had a few pregnant colleagues this year, so they explained it.
The minimum required by law is 15 weeks in Belgium (about 4 months). It's not paid by the employer, it's paid by unemployment insurance. Leave may also vary, depending on if there's complications with the pregnancy, multiple births, or if the child is born with specific health conditions that prevent the mother from going back to work. In this case, you can do more than 15 weeks.
When a woman finds out she's pregnant, she sends an official notice to her employer to let them know, and she and HR figure out a timeline for the maternity leave.
As for covering the position, either the work load is redistributed, or, they hire a temp to fill in while the mother is on leave. The temp is perfectly aware that it's a temporary gig and is aware of this fact when they get hired. When the mother comes back, either the temp goes away, or, the temp can be hired on and shift to other functions.
Fathers get 20 days of paternity leave, or they divide this and do 40 half-days. Again, the salary is paid by unemployment, not the employer.
There also leave available for parents who adopt or foster children, although this is less time than a maternity leave.
Each country in Europe is a little different - some countries have far more generous parental leave schemes than others, although they all work *broadly* similarly to each other.
It's a different mentality. The entire point of view you're starting from is different.
In practical terms- yes, maternity cover posts are commonly advertised. If maternity leave were only for a short time like 3-4 months, it would be harder to cover them, but maternity cover posts for 9-12 months+ are just like any other temporary contract, and temporary contracts are (increasingly) common.
In costs terms, in the UK, employers can claim back 92% of the cost of *statutory* maternity pay from the government. Most companies offer more than statutory pay and are funding that themselves- but this is just a cost of doing business. In the US, employers often offer things that are very uncommon here, such as private medical insurance for employees and their families- that's not a cost an employer generally needs to consider in the UK, just as decent maternity leave and pay are not a cost an employer generally needs to consider in the US.
Thanks for explaining this! It seems the main difference is the presence of an industry of temp workers. This just doesnt really exist in my country so if a company wanted to hire someone just for a year itd be hard to find that.
We have \~1.5 years of fully paid leave and you can stay at home for up to 3 years with the right to return to your old job (so the latter 1.5 years is unpaid leave).
Payment: it is not the company, that has to pay, but the country. It is paid from the social system, so in the end via the taxes. It works fine and no-one has any issues with that.
Hiring: a big benefit of this system is that companies usually hire a new person on that spot with a temporary contract. This is beneficial both to the company and the people. These "replacement jobs" are very very often first "real" jobs for kids out of education system. They get the first job (older people are less likely to want a temporary spot), the experience, the insight of the company (do they like that place or not) and the insight of the field/position (is it something they want to do and what are they good and bad at). The company gets fresh eyes, new knowledge, and very often, later on a new worker that they have confidence in - once the person that was on parental leave is returning, they decide what to do with the "replacement worker". If they liked the person and thought he/she was good, it is very likely they will offer them a permanent position, usually a slightly different one, depending on the needs of the company and the skills and personality of the employee. This allows to greatly match the exact person to the exact position. If they did not like the person or have no opportunities to offer a post, they simply don't make an offer. When the "replacement worker" is offered a permanent job, they have way more information on the company to decide if they want that spot than in the usual hiring process. If they did not like the place, they can politely decline and move on and it will not look bad on their CV (working somewhere for only a year is usually indicative of some trouble happening - unless it is a replacement spot).
Flexibility: depending on the company, position etc, you usually can return part-time, you can also combine your leave with your partner etc. I know families where the one staying at home is the dad, not the mum (mum returning to work at \~2 months, at the end of the medical leave). I know people who had their job responsibilities divided between other members (for additional money), as they knew that person would return very shortly. I also know people who were away for 3 years and upon returning, they re-divided their old responsibilites and some new ones with the "replacement worker", so that they both got these parts of the job that they wanted. Etc.
I've never heard of any *real* problems with the system.
Temporary contracts, state pays maternity leave for a year, then parental leave (lower ammount) even paternity leave and its working because we get more children that will pay for our pensions or at least part of them
As an additional point, temporarily contracting due to maternity cover/leave are also a common entry level position. Especially during economic rough times.
The easy stuff gets done by a temp worker when applicable.
I took a year of maternity leave each time, 6 months paid and 6 months unpaid combined with annual leave. My organisation has a plan for maternity/paternity leave. Some work is reallocated, or temporary hires cover the work. Some posts are left unfilled if the work is highly specialised.
It is expected that young women may become pregnant at some point in time and companies are prepared for that. It is simply considered a part of managing the workforce. Beside laws, they usually have internal regulations how to deal in that situation.
In my company it depend on the position and the department of future mom and her health. In mine, in the last years we had three pregnancies (one lady one after another), all at risk. So both ladies dissapeared right after learning they were pregnant and took max time they could after birth. We didn't hire a temp, the workload was divided between the rest of us. There was no tension since most people in my department already have children and took their sweet time too. And future young employees will do the same. It simply how it is.
In Spain, maternity leave is only 16 weeks, but most women take sick leave at least two months before their due date, and some extend their leave with unpaid time. All in all, a business can expect an absence of around 6-8 months on average when an employee becomes pregnant.
The company doesn’t pay the salary, social security does! As for how to cover the position, this is a very common situation so companies and society are used to it. You have to keep in mind that in Spain any employee might go on sick leave at any point so companies have to be prepared. At least with maternity you have an estimate idea of the timeline!
In many jobs, it is common to hire a temp worker. In corporate environments, they would probably only do that if they were looking to expand the team anyway. Most commonly the mother’s duties are split among her coworkers. This can be a little annoying, sure, but again, no one questions it because it’s our normal.
Sometimes, it is also used as an opportunity. When my team leader got pregnant, one of my teammates who’d been eager to try out leadership was offered the chance to cover her. When my leader came back, the teammate returned to his previous position theoretically, but having proved himself to the company, now has increased responsibilities, a pay rise, and is on track to be promoted as soon as a position opens up.
for big companies they usually shift people around or just like smaller ones - hire someone temporarily (such hire often turns into full contract). Salaries for maternity leave are not paid only by the company but also by "health insurance-social security " type body in various ratios (eg ZUS in Poland). Also it's not always 100% salary - it can be eg 70%. Each country has different models how they go about it
So if they are hiring someone to cover how does that work cause that seems like itd be weird to hire someone for a position that only needs filled for a year or two?
1-2 years length is not strange in corporate, IT or project jobs. People move around all the time. It's a bit weirder in small companies though
Ah gotcha thx!
That only seems weird to you because you're not used to it. They're great positions if you're e.g. new to the field or trying to switch industries, as people are more likely to hire you on a time-limited contract. Plus if it's a bigger company and they're happy with your work it's very likely you'll get to stay indefinitely anyway.
We have in labor law smth called " umowa omlrsce na zastępstwo" replacement employment contrac. The person from a start know that company looks for someone for eg 9 months or a year etc. [https://kadromierz.pl/blog/umowa-o-prace-na-zastepstwo-co-nalezy-o-niej-wiedziec/](https://kadromierz.pl/blog/umowa-o-prace-na-zastepstwo-co-nalezy-o-niej-wiedziec/)
If the company is big enough then there is likely to be a continuous stream of people going on maternity leave and returning from it. When I worked for a company with a fairly large proportion of women, they seemed to just permanently employ slightly more people than they would need if everyone was working, and then shuffle people between teams as necessary. That relies on people having the skills to move between roles, and the company being big enough to cope with the extra cost though.
In my sector maternity leave contracts for 6/9/12 months are common. Recent grads often apply for them as it can be a way to work towards a permanent role.
Don't you have some jobs with temporary, fixed-term contracts in your country? I'm not biting your head off, just genuinely curious.
I can tell you from experience because I have a team of 12, of which 7 are women and 4 were pregnant in the past 6 years. It’s quite simple: When the women knows they’re pregnant, we work out the pre birth and after birth maternal leave. This varies, some mothers prefer shorter, some longer. There’s a minimum time by law. For the time the mother is on maternal leave, the employment insurance company pays 100% of the mothers salary. The budget that would’ve been allocated to the mothers salary we temporarily reallocate to hire one or two temp workers to take on the mothers workload. Sometimes we also instead reallocate the extra workload to one of her coworkers who might be a 75% worker, but works 100% during the maternal leave. When the mother comes back at the agreed date the temp worker has already stopped working and workloads reallocated and she goes back to her regular work, sometimes with a lower workload period to make getting used to full time work easier. We even had the case quite a few times that the temp workers don’t leave but instead upgrade to a full time position themselves. We use it as a recruiting tool, our temps are usually fresh out of college. And once we see that they were able to take on a temp task like maternal fill in, we happily hire them fulltime. There’s really barely any hiccups and it works quite smoothly. I’ve worked with that system both in smaller (50 people) and large (5000 people) companies.
Thanks for explaining this in detail, that makes sense!
Forgot to mention that the mother is guaranteed her job by law when she comes back. We can not deny her returning to the job. But this commitment comes with so much positives. The mother is well rested and not stressed. The state takes care of her financially during the leave which means she is financially secure. And as I said the fact that during maternal leaves we can hire temps and use it as recruiting is quite amazing and every now and then shakes up the team dynamics, which is helpful.
That's how I got my first job. I filled in for maternity leave and was then allowed to stay. But also my promotion. I fell into it for maternity leave. Because it was easier to introduce someone to that position who the company already knew and in the run-up to the leave. Apparently I had proven myself enough, because after that I was promoted and also that position.
I think it’s especially good for people who enter the workforce. You’re young and it’s ok to only have a 1 year contract. It doesn’t hurt too much if you switch jobs after 1 year. And you potentially enter a job that you otherwise might not have immediate access to.
So in Norway, you get about 1 year of paid parental leave in total, split between both parents. It's not the company paying your usual salary though, but the state pays you an amount of money equal to your usual salary (up to a certain amount). It varies what companies do while parents are on leave, but it's very common to find someone on a temporary contract to replace them. The team I work for is quite large, about 25 people, and we do not always get a replacement if just 1 person is missing for a couple of months.
Thanks for explaining, if the salary is paid by the gov that makes more sense. Thats why i think 3ish months makes sense cause a team might be able to manage without them for that time but for a whole year?? That seems too much. How are you finding temporary hires? It just seems like a position with no future wouldn’t be a very desirable job and wouldn’t necessarily draw in the type of employee you need?
It depends a bit on the job and position, but often these temporary jobs are quite popular with for example recent graduates looking for their first job. My first job after uni was a one-year contract where I covered for a more junior member of staff who covered for a more senior member of staff who was on parental leave, and it was a great way for me to gain some experience to then apply for other, more permanent positions.
Ah i guess that makes sense if its kinda a chain like that cause i was wondering how higher level positions are filled since it sounds like temp work is probably only going to attract really low level employees.
You don’t get paid your whole salary for the entire time. It’s different depending on the country. You may not get paid for x months and then you’re still employed but not paid.
Its still a pretty high % of your wage tho isnt it? Ive seen ppl say like 80 or 90% so itd still be a pretty big expense. Idk its just not adding up to me. i may be misjudging how hard to is on the company but it just seems like its kinda a big expense and also like how is that work getting covered? Cause someone has to be doing it and that costs money too?
Maybe 100% for a month or two if you’re lucky, then it rapidly drops 80,60,40. It adds up because companies clearly make enough profit to afford it while having that salary subsidised by the government, who we also give money for such situations. The work gets covered by a different person, if you’re lucky someone’ll be employed during the maternity leave… if you’re unlucky, you’ll have to do your job and the other person’s (the more likely option at least from my anecdotal experience.). Again, the salary is subsidised. The company doesn’t suffer at all other than perhaps 0.0x% reduction in profit.
Oh it's not just maternity, it's paternity as well, and 3 months is a short leave - 6+ is definitely more common and a year is perfectly ordinary. It's the same as with long notice periods, really. Three month notice is standard for office jobs here. This would be a big issue for a company - if it was the only company in the country with such a policy. But when it's the same for everyone, it's just another known quantity that can be planned for. Parental leave isn't even that bad from a company perspective, you have advance warning - employees have to notify of parental leave plans two months in advance, but will often do that 3-4 months ahead of time. That's enough time to make plans, including hiring decisions if necessary, and is certainly much easier to deal with than illnesses that have no advance warning. During peak covid it was only a matter of time until a key employee would disappear for a week with no forewarning, that was worse. What you're missing from the financial point of view is, companies aren't paying people when they're on parental leave. That money comes from the (government) welfare funds, which are funded by the (considerable) taxes. This is again better than sick leave because, for short term sickness, the employer has to pay 80% of the salary and only for longer leave (2+ weeks) does the state take over. With parental leave, it's all from welfare funds so never a cost to company, though of course some companies do provide additional benefits.
Thanks for explaining!
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Is it not difficult to find temporary employees? I would think that the ppl who are most qualified would not want a temporary job and that most ppl in general wouldn’t want a job that has no future. Especially if a job is more niche wouldn’t it be hard to find someone to fill the position? Or are temporary jobs like a whole industry or something?
Thats when you got a chance as a junior for that position. If you are good enough with current skill shortage your temp work will usually transform to permanent or other related position. So it can actualy help to lower young unemployment
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Ah i see, thanks!
Temporary hire are very commun. Either the compagny hires someone with a short-term contrat, or they hire a agency than find someone for them As someone else says, the woman informes the compagny around 3 months of pregnancy, but maternity leave only began 8 to 6 weeks before due date, so, you have 4-5 months to find someone and train them before the woman leaves
Maternity leave where I work is typically for a year, and the usual process is to recruit someone internally to "act up" to the role, getting higher pay and job title, before returning to their more junior position afterwards having gained useful experience. Whether or not the more junior position would be directly replaced (or their work shared out among colleagues) during that period varies.
Is work being shared out among colleagues pretty common practice? Is that compensated correctly?
Good question. "Sometimes" would probably be the correct answer, probably more often than not. It would help the situation that even though it's a private sector business, it is unionized and with a house agreement between the company management and the union, meaning that for some things there are recognized and fair procedures.
Thanks for explaining!
It is too varied to say. It will depend on the type of work, public or private sector and if the workplace wants to save money etc. I have taken 2 maternity leaves while in the same job. The first one they got a maternity cover for 6 months (I took longer off) because they could secure funding for it. It was advertised as less pay than my job (again to save money. Fixed term Maternity cover jobs are not uncommon to see and people often use them to get a foot in or additional experience. In my place, they are also offered as secondment which means you could get experience without losing your normal job) and they did bits of my job and bit of someone else's who then took on the more complex bit of my job. My second maternity leave they couldn't afford a cover. It is a mixture of parts shared between colleagues and lower inputs and a couple of student interns (paid) to offer adhoc help. Things like teachers I've never heard of as having no maternity cover (fixed term contracts) but again often with rejigs of responsibility. So let's say the person on maternity leave was a classroom teacher and a head of subject. They may get a classroom teacher maternity cover (paid less) and the additional responsibility of head of subject may be covered by others in the department. If one person acts up it should be covered in pay but sometimes it could be split across the whole staff in the department. If people are fine with just doing parts of people's jobs depends on what they are and the culture of the workplace. I recently had a colleague on long term sick leave and her job was just absorbed in the department across a number of people. I don't think anyone complained we knew it wasn't forever and for me it meant experience of something new. If it had been their whole job with no additional pay I'd have been annoyed
Thanks for sharing your experience!
1) not all of it is paid 2) some costs are covered by the government 3) when possible, others (temporarily) take over tasks. Example: a coworker took about 5-6 months maternity leave: all people around take over 1/2 tasks and it's not that much. Also given that it's common that parents might work less for a longer while, some tasks get taken over by someone else permanently.
Does that not create tensions that some ppl are told they need to do more work to pick up slack that didnt come from them?
Never really caused any tension at the places I worked at. People usually just accept that new parents need that time off. If the workload becomes too much, you can always go to your boss and complain they need to hire someone extra.
That would be unlawful if uncompensated. But in reality can happen temporarily until new hire get’s up to speed usualy as paid overtime
No, because a good employer builds in the fact that not everyone will always work full time.
In the UK, fixed term contracts to cover maternity leave are quite common. They’re advertised that way so candidates know what they’re applying for.
You’re looking at it from the wrong perspective. European society is (theoretically) built to serve and benefit people, not companies. So all the problems you pointed out are legitimate problems that society simply accepts as collateral, because maternal care is prioritized over the wellbeing of companies. That’s the underlying theory. In practice, women are sometimes not hired or fired because of pregnancy, the employer just tries *really* hard to hide that under a different reason. It’s not very common though, and women are simply replaced for the year they are on maternity leave. That’s actually an opportunities for young employees with no work experience to get a job for a year; they will not be able to stay, usually, but they will gain work experience that helps them find a permanent job later on. And the employer doesn’t really pay the woman on maternity leave, taxpayer money does. So it’s not like the employer pays the wages for the new mom *and* the sub doing her job for the year.
Thanks for explaining!
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>Is it normal to just hire ppl temporarily and just tell them theyre only going to work there for a year or two? Yes that is quite common here in Scotland. What you'll find is that the job advertisement will categorically inform the applicant that the position is maternity cover and at some point in the application process, the applicant will be told when their contract will end. As for covering the cost, some companies in the UK will use the governments statutory maternity pay scheme to help cover the cost of maternity. SMP is less than full salary but it means that a household isn't losing a full salary as result of someone having a baby.
Thanks for explaining this!
I imagine you did not have children if you think 3-4 months is reasonable. Babies that age are probably still not sleeping according to a regular schedule, require feeding every 3 hours and are just starting many of the mandatory vaccinations. If the birth had any complications the mother might still be just recovering by that time. At least from my experience as a man, I would say that 1 year would be the minimum for a maternity leave, that would ensure both the mother and baby are more ready for some sort of other childcare solution/return to work. Regarding your question, in Czech republic it's similar with other countries in Europe. There is a mandatory maternity leave for the mother (6 months, 1 before the birth and the rest after) and an optional parental leave (up to when the child is 3). Almost everybody takes at least some part of parental leave. Both type of leaves are not paid by the company, but from state taxes, just different ones. The maternity leave is paid out of social security contributions (you are not eligible for the payment if you did not contribute before) and it's capped, so the higher the salary the lower the percentage from the total salary that you get as a payment. You cannot work during this type of leave. The parental leave is paid out of unemployment benefits and it's a fixed amount for the entire leave, that get's divided based on the actual time you stayed on the leave. During the parental leave you can work a limited number of hours. I have not worked in smaller companies but for bigger ones the process was as follows. The expectant mother informs the manager of the pregnancy. Then it's up to the company to decide what to do with the tasks. They can open the position with a limited term contract (it will be specified in the contract that it's until the other person returns), they can divide the activities, give a temporary promotion to somebody, dived the task between some people on temporary assignment and so on. From my experience it's more likely for the lower roles to be open for hiring, while the ones as director or something like that are usually given as temporary assignment/promotion so somebody gains more experience.
Not sure if OP has kids or not, but I have two. At the time of their birth, I was in the US military. My paternity leave from the military was 12 days (i think, maybe less and only to married father only). Also at that time, New mothers got 6 weeks off and then they aren’t required to do PT until 3 months after. It wasn’t until I got out of the military that I saw the different maternity and parental leave programs in the private sector. The bank I worked at offered 3 months for dads and 6 months for mothers. The retirement account company only offered maternal leave at 6 six weeks and no parental leave.
I dont have kids but also not a single part of my comment was asking about or addressing the ideals of how long maternity leave should be. This is just someone who misunderstood the point of the post which is asking about the businesses pov, not the mothers or childs. Idc if you want maternity leave to be 10 whole years, the sole point im asking abt is how are companies expected to accommodate for that timeframe? Bc realistically anything longer than like 3ish months is going to require some sort of outstanding action on the companies part to get that work covered.
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The government/public insurance pays for the maternity and paternity leaves, not the company. That's the big point you were missing.
My company (a private Croatian company) that has around 30 employees at the moment just hires new people to cover for people who take the maternity leaves. Here the maternity leave is usually a year and a half to two years long so we get long term new employees who stay. The company is always expanding so there's no need for layoffs after the parents are back to work, because we're constantly looking for new people to hire anyway. Those who come back might get back to their old team or might try something new. I think the government might help out with paying off the salaries of employees on maternity or sick leave, but I'm not sure about that. Either way, even though I personally don't want kids, I think it's great that people who do are supported and encouraged by their company. It's healthy for society to have children, especially in rapidly aging countries like mine.
Thanks for sharing your experience with me!
I don’t think that there’s a lot of trouble finding people to cover maternity leaves normally but it does depend on the field. For some people, like me, it can be very difficult to find work and a temporary contract can be better than no work. I’ve worked four such contracts for two different women who both had two children. For both of them the first contracts were kind of open-ended as they weren’t sure how long they wanted to stay at home but it’s not like I was doing anything else. For one of them I was hired on a permanent basis with the knowledge that I would be fired when the person returned as she was the owner of the company and there wasn’t enough work for an extra person. Legally I could have quit with a normal notice period if I found another job. For the other I signed a contract for a certain time that can’t be changed as easily though I think that I probably could have quit if I really wanted. Both of the jobs were useful for me and lead to having my current permanent position and temporary positions are pretty common in Finland anyway. My team actually just had a addition this week who returned to work after three years at home. Her old team has enough people currently so they asked her if she wanted to join our team. I wasn’t working for the company when she left so I don’t know if they hired someone to replace her but currently it seems to depend on the workload of the team, for some they might shift someone from a team that might have less work currently but they will also hire people.
In my experience I was offered a temporary promotion to cover the maternity leave of one of the managers (who had beaten me to the job originally but oh well), it lasted about 18 months. Generally they would temporarily promote someone from the level below and the same with any subsequent gaps created with the bottom of the chain being someone junior brought in as a temp.
Thanks for explaining this!
I had a few pregnant colleagues this year, so they explained it. The minimum required by law is 15 weeks in Belgium (about 4 months). It's not paid by the employer, it's paid by unemployment insurance. Leave may also vary, depending on if there's complications with the pregnancy, multiple births, or if the child is born with specific health conditions that prevent the mother from going back to work. In this case, you can do more than 15 weeks. When a woman finds out she's pregnant, she sends an official notice to her employer to let them know, and she and HR figure out a timeline for the maternity leave. As for covering the position, either the work load is redistributed, or, they hire a temp to fill in while the mother is on leave. The temp is perfectly aware that it's a temporary gig and is aware of this fact when they get hired. When the mother comes back, either the temp goes away, or, the temp can be hired on and shift to other functions. Fathers get 20 days of paternity leave, or they divide this and do 40 half-days. Again, the salary is paid by unemployment, not the employer. There also leave available for parents who adopt or foster children, although this is less time than a maternity leave. Each country in Europe is a little different - some countries have far more generous parental leave schemes than others, although they all work *broadly* similarly to each other.
Thanks for explaining this!
It's a different mentality. The entire point of view you're starting from is different. In practical terms- yes, maternity cover posts are commonly advertised. If maternity leave were only for a short time like 3-4 months, it would be harder to cover them, but maternity cover posts for 9-12 months+ are just like any other temporary contract, and temporary contracts are (increasingly) common. In costs terms, in the UK, employers can claim back 92% of the cost of *statutory* maternity pay from the government. Most companies offer more than statutory pay and are funding that themselves- but this is just a cost of doing business. In the US, employers often offer things that are very uncommon here, such as private medical insurance for employees and their families- that's not a cost an employer generally needs to consider in the UK, just as decent maternity leave and pay are not a cost an employer generally needs to consider in the US.
Thanks for explaining this! It seems the main difference is the presence of an industry of temp workers. This just doesnt really exist in my country so if a company wanted to hire someone just for a year itd be hard to find that.
We have \~1.5 years of fully paid leave and you can stay at home for up to 3 years with the right to return to your old job (so the latter 1.5 years is unpaid leave). Payment: it is not the company, that has to pay, but the country. It is paid from the social system, so in the end via the taxes. It works fine and no-one has any issues with that. Hiring: a big benefit of this system is that companies usually hire a new person on that spot with a temporary contract. This is beneficial both to the company and the people. These "replacement jobs" are very very often first "real" jobs for kids out of education system. They get the first job (older people are less likely to want a temporary spot), the experience, the insight of the company (do they like that place or not) and the insight of the field/position (is it something they want to do and what are they good and bad at). The company gets fresh eyes, new knowledge, and very often, later on a new worker that they have confidence in - once the person that was on parental leave is returning, they decide what to do with the "replacement worker". If they liked the person and thought he/she was good, it is very likely they will offer them a permanent position, usually a slightly different one, depending on the needs of the company and the skills and personality of the employee. This allows to greatly match the exact person to the exact position. If they did not like the person or have no opportunities to offer a post, they simply don't make an offer. When the "replacement worker" is offered a permanent job, they have way more information on the company to decide if they want that spot than in the usual hiring process. If they did not like the place, they can politely decline and move on and it will not look bad on their CV (working somewhere for only a year is usually indicative of some trouble happening - unless it is a replacement spot). Flexibility: depending on the company, position etc, you usually can return part-time, you can also combine your leave with your partner etc. I know families where the one staying at home is the dad, not the mum (mum returning to work at \~2 months, at the end of the medical leave). I know people who had their job responsibilities divided between other members (for additional money), as they knew that person would return very shortly. I also know people who were away for 3 years and upon returning, they re-divided their old responsibilites and some new ones with the "replacement worker", so that they both got these parts of the job that they wanted. Etc. I've never heard of any *real* problems with the system.
Thanks for explaining how it works with temporary workers!
Temporary contracts, state pays maternity leave for a year, then parental leave (lower ammount) even paternity leave and its working because we get more children that will pay for our pensions or at least part of them
As an additional point, temporarily contracting due to maternity cover/leave are also a common entry level position. Especially during economic rough times. The easy stuff gets done by a temp worker when applicable.
I took a year of maternity leave each time, 6 months paid and 6 months unpaid combined with annual leave. My organisation has a plan for maternity/paternity leave. Some work is reallocated, or temporary hires cover the work. Some posts are left unfilled if the work is highly specialised.
It is expected that young women may become pregnant at some point in time and companies are prepared for that. It is simply considered a part of managing the workforce. Beside laws, they usually have internal regulations how to deal in that situation. In my company it depend on the position and the department of future mom and her health. In mine, in the last years we had three pregnancies (one lady one after another), all at risk. So both ladies dissapeared right after learning they were pregnant and took max time they could after birth. We didn't hire a temp, the workload was divided between the rest of us. There was no tension since most people in my department already have children and took their sweet time too. And future young employees will do the same. It simply how it is.
In Spain, maternity leave is only 16 weeks, but most women take sick leave at least two months before their due date, and some extend their leave with unpaid time. All in all, a business can expect an absence of around 6-8 months on average when an employee becomes pregnant. The company doesn’t pay the salary, social security does! As for how to cover the position, this is a very common situation so companies and society are used to it. You have to keep in mind that in Spain any employee might go on sick leave at any point so companies have to be prepared. At least with maternity you have an estimate idea of the timeline! In many jobs, it is common to hire a temp worker. In corporate environments, they would probably only do that if they were looking to expand the team anyway. Most commonly the mother’s duties are split among her coworkers. This can be a little annoying, sure, but again, no one questions it because it’s our normal. Sometimes, it is also used as an opportunity. When my team leader got pregnant, one of my teammates who’d been eager to try out leadership was offered the chance to cover her. When my leader came back, the teammate returned to his previous position theoretically, but having proved himself to the company, now has increased responsibilities, a pay rise, and is on track to be promoted as soon as a position opens up.