Hi there,

Hoping to get advice on our situation.

My wife has been on a temporary contract (maternity leave cover) since June last year. Last month she was offered the role permanently; signed a contract for permanent employment which will take effect in June - since her temp contract ends on 31 May.

We found out today that we are about 6 weeks pregnant

Question is - is it wise to inform the employer about the pregnancy this early, or at least before the permanent contract commences? We are worried that her employer might find a way to revoke the permanent contract, since it technically hasn't taken effect yet.

Can they do that even?

Any advice or insight will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your time in advance.

Does the contract have a trial period? During a trial period there is no protection of being fired whilst pregnant. Notice can be given after she returns to work, normally 1 month in the first year.
Wont the pregnancy will be fairly obvious at 6 months?

...the new contract does not have a probation/trial period, since it serves as a continuation of the same role.

She most definitely wishes to be able to inform her employer soon, since - you're right - the bump will be fairly obvious if she waits for the permanent contract to begin!

I guess let them know when it's no longer possible to be a secret, telling them too early does not serve any real purpose, in any case 6 weeks is very early days.

Congrats on the new baby!

They could technically take the contract away, but in my experience the reaction of employers all depends on how the news is broken. Having worked with a couple women who waited until six months to tell people, it put management/team in a tight situation, and people didn't forget it when the protection period ended.

Maternity protection doesn't cover the trial period so the point is moot because month 9 is when the trial period ends, if I understand correctly. But if the trial period were shorter or the timing was different, I would advise a woman to be up front as soon as the doctor gave the all clear.

The girls I worked with were able to keep their jobs for the pregnancy by hiding it late, but they weren't able to stick around long after the protection period ended. Especially because one of them held out until the six month then wound up on bed rest only like a week or two after she told her boss. (Again, not her fault, but right or wrong people were peeved).

One coworker had a great maternity situation: told boss then everyone when she found out, which IMO is too early but hey I don't have kids so whatever, and everyone really appreciated having like six months to reorganize, decide who would take over part of her tasks, organize training, recruit cover, etc. She wound up working 70-80% the last few months of her pregnancy and telecommuting a lot, but it was no biggie because we had all picked up some of her tasks and trained the cover. It helped her coming back as well and made bossman much more amenable to changing her contract to 80%. Seriously, it couldn't have been more awesome, and it was because she was so early telling us.

In y'alls case, I think if you tell them around week 12-15 and play the honesty card it will look much better. Also, that way if they are buttheads and cancel the permanent contract, it gives you more time as a family to figure out financials and logistics.

You don't need to wait until her bump is showing (generally around 4 months), but 6 weeks is very early.

So many things can happen in the first weeks/months of a pregnancy that you may want to wait until at least 3 months and have confirmation of a healthy pregnancy before informing anyone. (At 3 months an ultrasound is done where they check for normal development.)

Congratulations and good luck with the pregnancy.