Guide to Maternity Leave

Don’t discriminate

Employees cannot be fired or denied health coverage because of pregnancy. An employee who can continue to perform her job during pregnancy must be allowed to; an employee who needs workplace accommodations must be treated the same way as employees who are temporarily disabled for other reasons.

I recommend: A labor attorney can help you ensure that your company is in compliance with the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and the FMLA; you can locate one through FindLaw or Lawyers.com. An HR service, such as HR Consultants, Inc., can help you evaluate your procedures and train your managers.

Comply with the FMLA if you have 50 or more employees

The FMLA applies to businesses that have 50 or more employees. Seasonal hires count: if your business has more than 50 workers for 20 or more weeks per year, you’re included. Covered employers are required to grant at least 12 weeks of unpaid parental leave for either birth or adoption to employees (of either gender) who have been with the company at least a year. The FMLA specifically covers “parental” rather than “maternal” leave so that both fathers and mothers may take it. If you hire fewer people than this, the FMLA doesn’t apply to your business. However, you may want to educate your employees about which employers are covered and which are not as part of communicating your policy, so that your workers have a clear idea of what to expect.

I recommend: Download a poster explaining the FMLA from the Department of Labor’s Web site and hang it where your employees can read it. Form WH-381 (employer response to a request for leave) can also be obtained from the site; using it is optional but will help you ensure that your recordkeeping meets the FMLA requirements.

Find out if any state laws apply to your business

In addition to the federal FMLA and Pregnancy Discrimination Act, some states have enacted their own parental leave requirements. Research the laws of your company’s state and see if you’re subject to any additional requirements.

I recommend: State-by-state guides to parental leave laws are available from HRTools.com and from AmericanBaby.com.

Keep productivity up

Who will do the work of the employee who is taking parental leave? Asking coworkers to cover may overburden them and will likely cause resentment. A better policy is to cover the position of the employee taking leave through hiring a temporary or contract worker. Flexible working arrangements such as part-time work, flex scheduling, or telecommuting may help your employee return to work faster. (And a grateful employee is often a highly productive employee.)

I recommend: Search for a temporary employee yourself through online job boards such as Monster.com or CareerBuilder.com, which can be an effective source for short-term workers, or use the American Staffing Association's (ASA) member database to find a staffing agency in your area.

Create a parental leave policy

You’ll want to have a clear policy that communicates the amount of leave time available, whether leave will be paid or unpaid, how much notice of needing leave employees must provide (the FMLA calls for 30 days notice), whether light-duty positions are available to employees who normally perform more physical activities, and similar issues.

I recommend: Sample policies that can be downloaded and customized to meet your company’s needs are available from Business Owner’s Toolkit and HRMatters.com.

Inform your employees

Communicate your parental leave policies to your employees, and emphasize their responsibilities as well as the amount of leave available. Make sure all messages, formal and informal, carry the same information. Like all benefits, parental leave can be a potent recruitment and retention tool – if your parental leave is generous for your industry or area, then make sure your employees know!

I recommend: Include your parental leave policy in your employee manual – templates and small business software are available from TemplateZone.com. If you have a company newsletter (you can easily produce one through the templates at Constant Contact) or your HR department has a web portal (vendors such as CheckPointHR will do this for you), then distribute your parental leave policy through these channels as well.