Don’t take 12 months’ maternity leave if you want to keep your job, mothers warned Women who take long maternity breaks run the risk of losing their jobs, a senior business leaders has claimed. “I […]

Women who take long maternity breaks run the risk of losing their jobs, a senior business leaders has claimed.

“I know it’s counter-cultural but I think long maternity breaks are bad for women,” the Chair of the Institute of Directors, Lady Barbara Judge, said.

Women should return to work as soon as possible after having a child, Lady Judge said in a speech at a Wealth Management Association event.

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“A friend of mine worked at [the consumer goods company] Reckitt Benckiser and wanted to take a year off to look after her adopted baby,” the business publication Management Today reported Lady Judge as saying.

“I told her: ‘You’re mad. You have a great job and, trust me, you’ll lose it if you take a year off.’”

The business leader said her friend took 12 months’ maternity leave and, when she returned to work just before the financial crisis hit, “the first job they cut was hers”.

“Why? Because her boss had been doing her job for a year. They realised they didn’t need her.”

In the UK pregnant employees are entitled to 52 weeks of Statutory Maternity Leave providing they give the correct notice to their employer. Lady Judge, 69, is originally from the US, one of only two countries in the world that does not guarantee paid maternity leave.

“It gets you back into work; you don’t come off the tracks,” insisted Lady Judge, who took just 12 days off when her son was born.

Ben Black, CEO of My Family Care, which provides childcare support to employers, said Lady Judge “called it as it was”.

“The longer the break you take the more difficult it is,” Mr Black said. “Things move on, people have grabbed your clients, you don’t know so much.

“People were upset with [Lady Judge’s] comments because it might not be fair but it is a practical reality,” he argued.

“Careers are competitive,” Mr Black said, adding anyone who could not see “the reality” of the situation was “crazy”.

Companies must focus on flexible working, better childcare support and improved maternity and paternity care in order to retain female employees who become mothers, he said.

Mr Black added it was “unrealistic” for mothers to take 12 months’ maternity leave and return to work expecting their position to remain unchanged.

“Don’t as a mother sit back and expect the employer to do everything,” he said.

Mr Black suggested mothers should consider phoning in for weekly conference calls or offer to work part-time in order to keep their foot in the door.

Jemima Olchawski, of the women’s rights charity the Fawcett Society, said: “Many women face an uphill struggle against outdated perceptions, inflexible workplaces and the need to balance caring and paid work.

She continued: “Twelve years after having a baby, women earn a third less than men.”

“If we really value caring work and want to get the most out of our workforce we need to shift the balance so that men play a greater role in caring.

“That means doing more to encourage dads to take time out in the first year of a baby’s life. But we also need to move to flexible working by default and stop relying on outdated assumptions about working mums.”

Justine Roberts, CEO of Mumsnet, said: ‘The data shows that being a mother is a terrible thing for your career, full stop – but instead of women being compelled to rush back to work prematurely after birth, the solution lies in employers adapting to provide a workplace that actually works for parents.”

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