I REFER to the letters in my paper, “Have sympathy for bosses of pregnant workers” (Nov 16), and “Pregnant workers as good as the rest” (Nov 17).

I worked hard for my former bosses during my pregnancies, but not all of them treated me fairly.

I was retrenched during my third pregnancy and was fortunate enough to receive my retrenchment benefits, but no maternity benefits.

It was impossible for me to get another job for the next nine months.

Most companies were unwilling to hire me because of the hassle involved when I had to go on maternity leave.

What could bosses do?

Those with pregnant employees could begin redistributing their work earlier so that colleagues could have more time to pick up their pace and adjust to an increased workload.

Setting restrictions on when employees can start a family would not benefit a company in the long run.

After giving birth, I wanted to return to work but faced another set of challenges, as some bosses did not like the prospect of hiring workers with young children.

This was because they tend to apply for urgent leave more often.

Other employers feel that those with young kids may not be able to perform because of heavy family commitments.

My advice to bosses is: Don’t write off a worker for these reasons.

Such workers have a greater sense of job responsibility because they need their job to provide for their families.

There is no hard-and-fast rule when it comes to managing people. It takes some effort to create a pro-family working environment and to handle individual cases with a human touch so that workers are happy.

Happy workers are more productive and would be more willing to make sacrifices for the company during tough times.

Ms Chow Lai May

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