How to Tell Your Boss You’re Pregnant?
The very idea of breaking the news of pregnancy to the boss causes trepidation in many women. Do you want to know how your boss can react to such an announcement, and how to make it as smooth as it can ever be done?
To begin with a truism, pregnancy, for all the wonder and happiness it brings into the family, spells worrisome time for both the woman as a professional and her boss. The expectant mother – whether as an applicant, or an employee – is often fearful for her career prospects. Studies reveal that, in attempt to try to balance the family and business aspects of life, 40% of British mothers don’t avail themselves of the whole of the maternity leave and resume working in less than a year.
On the other side of the carpet, the employer has his (or her) share of troubles, and it’s often up to him how to handle the case. Unfortunately, there are so many ways of handling, depending on each particular case, but also on how the employee and the employer approach the situation. It can be done in a better way as well as awkwardly. So, a piece of advice or two about how to deal with it best would not come amiss.
Breaking the news
You may feel the temptation to share the news with your colleagues before you break it to the boss. Don’t yield to it. The most likely outcome will be that the boss will hear it through the grapevine and overreact.
Don’t be in a hurry to tell. If you can, keep mum during the first tender three months at least. With some women it’s almost a natural tendency to keep things secret – a kind of an ancient superstitious fear. Yet, if you’ve begun having onsets of morning sickness, it may be hard to do. Try to put it down to the workings of an insidious virus.
Now, there may be strong reasons for you to inform the management about your pregnancy immediately. For instance, if you are working with hazardous materials or if your job involves international travelling, which can be downright exhausting. You may be plagued by sickness and feeling so feeble and shaky that you just can’t go on working properly. In this case the announcement can’t very well be postponed. Therefore, start thinking over how it’s to be done in the most appropriate way.
Don’t set about it casual like. Don’t run down your boss in the kitchen – make an official appointment with your superior or with the HR manager. Consider taking them out for a cup of coffee (only remember not to order coffee for yourself, you’re off caffeine!).
You know when the child is due, do you? It may have been the first bit of information you got from your doctor. Well, you’d do well to give it to your boss. It will show you’re open and practical about what is an extremely uncertain and sensitive situation. It’s something which can be treated as definite datum, so you’re making it convenient for your employer to calculate – however approximately – when you will be coming back. It’s a long way off, of course, but there are employers who like to be in the know.
A timely announcement will certainly be appreciated if you’re involved in strategic planning. You don’t have to, speaking from a legal point of view, but if you’ve got a pivotal role in the company’s strategy and then you drop out suddenly, making the whole scheme crumble before the eyes of your colleagues, there will hardly be anybody who will thank you for that, disregarding.
You are not sure what the reaction to the news will be? Have you got reasons to suspect that your boss will take a dim view of your going on a maternity leave? Then you can procrastinate until after 3-4 months have passed. By the way, it should go to prove that your performance hasn’t deteriorated with pregnancy. In a more propitious conditions, you can announce your state right on top of your accomplishing an important stage of the current project and acquire some kudos. It’s an asset to have a good opinion on your side, because, although discrimination against pregnant women is illegal, you have no guarantees that all will go according to law.
Have you an appraisal coming? Wait and get it; your appraisal is not supposed to hang on the fact that you’re in the family way. Give no chance to your top managers to have their opinions of your performance clouded by irrelevant matters. Get what’s coming to you.
Take into account that your state may not be a secret. While you may be trying to prevent the news from any unwanted leaking, people can remember what you said in the past about wanting to conceive and foresee that it is coming. Then again, it’s enough for some women but to clap their eyes on another woman to know they’ve a bun in the oven.
It’s not improbable that your employer will be genuinely delighted at the news. It may happen despite the fact that they will have to start figuring out how to proceed without you. Well, in this case everything is just fine!
Give a thought to how your place in the company’s functioning might be filled and discuss your ideas with the boss. Naturally, it is outside your responsibility. Still, you can have a very good idea who of your colleagues could step into your shoes, or you can have in mind a friend or an acquaintance who would be ready to occupy your place while you’re away.
It is less important for a large company where the HR manager can sort out the problem of filling a gap fairly easily. In a smaller company your absence may be felt more acutely, and at first the management may get into a tizzy over it. If you help out, it will go a long way.
Never give a solemn promise to come back after the maternity leave. You don’t know what will happen in the meantime. Having spent a year with the baby, mothers often decide that they are having the time of their lives and want nothing better than to go on doing it. Or stay at home for more than a year. Oh, the family may move to another place. Things do happen, so stop before you pledge yourself – the more so if it is your first child.
Your employer can’t properly press you to commit yourself to a definite date of coming back – it’s actually illegal. Therefore it is better to promise that your boss will be the first to know when you have made the decision, but avoid giving empty promises.
If you have already made arrangements about childcare, you have secured help from your relatives or a nurse, or your partner has agreed to stay with the baby full-time, you may be quite definite on your future plans. Nevertheless, it’s better not to disclose them – although your boss may be dying to know, you are within your rights to be evasive.
Remind yourself that women go on a maternity leave all the time, it’s nothing special or drastic. Every boss is supposed to understand that it’s a problem that is bound to come up, and, no matter how untimely it is for them, they have to lump it and play along. It’s up to you to be in good time with the news, and discuss the issue squarely and honestly. It’s your great time, don’t spoil it and don’t let anything or anybody spoil it for you.
