Issue 2: Family planning

Case study – Access to sick leave

The 5 retail Managers met Pollock and Astrid for dinner to discuss the window designs for the pre-Christmas launch. They all knew Astrid before and were happy she was back although Cliff couldn’t resist asking how she’d fit in the window now. Pollock explained how her 16 week contract was designed; 20 working days in the warehouse, then 10 days allocated to each store covered by their budgets, and the remaining 10 days back at the warehouse. If Astrid was ill on a shop allocated day, the retail outlet would be reimbursed, via usage of a warehouse day.

“That’d be unpaid sick leave ?” asked Marty Randall. “Well no, we have 9 paid sick days per year, so Astrid’s 4 month contract has 3 paid sick days in it. Plus with obstetrician appointments she can access her paid sick leave in hourly blocks, as per our new Pregnancy and Parenting Policy” explained Pollock.

“Pity Scott Sayers, my assistant manager is male! He’d love to access his paid sick leave hourly. Scott and Jess have been working with IVF for 8 months and he often needs an hour here and there …so much for equal opportunity” Marty scoffed.

“And what if a partner or support person wants to use a few hours of their own paid sick leave to go to the ultra-sound appointment or a birthing class?” asked Hannah

“The Policy caters for pregnant women, and male and female employees accessing parental leave or adoption leave. I may update it and include special maternity leave; mind you I’m being pushed to forget I even heard the term and let the person in question go, as she has no paid sick leave left and already had 3 weeks unpaid sick leave. An HR mate said he never offers special maternity leave – his view is you don’t have to. I don’t know, it was hard enough to get breastfeeding covered, thank goodness for Corrine’s persistence. But then the CEO refused to extend breastfeeding provisions to female employees who were adopting, he thought it was ludicrous.”

“I’m confused” said Cliff.

“But we’ve included 4 weeks paid maternity and adoption leave for women and 1 week for men - again thanks to Corrine who’ll go for 3 months now. She’s copped a hard time – there’ve been some tasteless jokes about Corrine’s system ” said Pollock.

“Surely the adopting parent gets the 4 weeks irrespective of gender?” asked Astrid.
 

Proceed to Section B - Issue 2: Things that could be going wrong
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