Sorry in advance, this is long!
I work for a manufacturing company that was acquired by another company in our industry in September of last year. The acquisition/integration has been a nightmare. We’ve experienced a huge drop in our employee benefits and compensation, and people have been flooding out the door. Examples of the drop in benefits (this will be important later) include no sick pay and reduced vacation time.
Backstory: I hired a temp employee last June, with the intent to hire her as permanent as soon as her temp contract was up in September, which my boss supported and approved. (We almost always do temp-to-perm hires rather than direct hires because the temp agency in our area always finds fantastic candidates.) Since the acquisition happened in September, my boss was let go and all of our administrative tasks were backlogged, but I kept working to push the hiring process forward. I had to pull a lot of strings, but I FINALLY got her officially hired in January. She is a fantastic employee, and such an asset to the company.
In March, she let me know that she is pregnant, due at the end of November. I contacted HR to find out what we needed to do to get her leave planned and processed, and they informed me she is not eligible for FMLA or any paid leave until she’s been with the company a full 12 months. Which means that if she wants to take leave at the end of her pregnancy or when the baby is born, she’ll have to take it unpaid (1-2 months) and then she’ll begin getting paychecks again starting in January. I went to my boss and asked what the process is for requesting an exception to the published policy, because I don’t think she should be penalized for the company dragging its feet and taking four months to process her paperwork. He agreed that we would hold her job for her if she went on leave before her official 1 year anniversary, but said he wasn’t sure that he’d be able to get HR to make an exception on the pay.
I’ve basically spent the last few months pushing and pursuing every avenue I could trying to work something out. I also put together a cost/benefit analysis to show that the cost of NOT giving her leave with pay would actually be higher than just giving her the benefits early. Cut to today: my boss lets me know that he got a definitive no from HR and wants to start brainstorming “workarounds” to help her out.
This is where it gets batshit crazy. First idea: let her use up her vacation at the beginning of her leave to start with, that should give her a few weeks paid right off the bat, right? Wrong! She now only gets 1 week of vacation, and since we no longer have sick time, she’s having to use all her vacation time to make her pre-natal doctor’s appointments. Second idea: have her take her laptop home with her, she can just work remotely until Jan 1 when her paid leave will start. I was literally speechless for a full minute. He legitimately wants me to tell this woman we can “help her out and get her a paycheck” and all she’ll have to do is work full time from home immediately after going through the physical and emotional trauma of giving birth, and while she is caring for a brand-new infant. !!!!!!!!!
I said no, I’m not comfortable asking her to do that, and he said that he can talk to her if I feel uncomfortable. Which is when I finally really lost it. It’s not that I’m uncomfortable talking to my employee, it’s that this is morally and ethically WRONG! And I won’t be a party to it!
We ended up talking through the situation for another hour, with me basically saying that his best option will be to go on a hiring blitz, to replace all the employees who leave after being disgusted with the way this “family-oriented” company treats them.
I am so frustrated and at my wits’ end. Any advice that anyone can offer about taking on corporate HR to fight this would be greatly appreciated!