Advice Needed Please be Gentle with Me

[worrieduk]

Hi all,

I hope you are all doing well.

I am very scared of the comeback from the post as I have seen the experienced guys are quite "direct" but that's ok. I shall be grateful for any advice you can give me.

I searched through old post and nothing seems specific to my situation including the one from a lady who wasn't going to take mat leave and so on...

I will try to keep it short but I also want to give enough background.

Ok. a bit too much information but we have been trying to have a baby for about a year now and didn't anticipate it would take that long but any way, in the meantime I became fed up with my job and was in two minds about job hunting while trying to have a baby but after research and talking to people I came to the conclusion that the baby will happen in its own time and I cant stop living my life till then therefore if changing jobs will make me happy it was better to do it. Worst case, I will fall pregnant and wont be entitled to Mat pay or baby might not happen for another number of months. Unpredictable.

While searching for a new role, the agents made me realise I was hot for the contracting market. I had thought about contracting before and it is something I always wanted to try out to see if it is for me or I am better of as a permy. Main worries was around the insecurity (no sick pay, pressure, can be asked to leave at any point, not paid on leave and so on). Anyway I became convinced it was worth trying out and if it didn't work out, I would go back to permanent employment and would have closed that chapter.

I interviewed for a couple of roles which where either 6 months or 12 months but the 12 months one was the one that came through first. It is a reputable company, good rates and a good way for me to boost my CV and experience and of course I have a lot to offer them too and I am positive I can do a good job.

To cut the long story short, 2nd week into the contract, I find out that I am pregnant. Good news for me and my husband but not so good for the contract. I would have only done about 8 months out of 12 by the time I have to go on mat leave. I feel awful about this and I know there was a chance this would happen but like I said we had been trying for a while and I was becoming very depressed in my old job and it could have taken another year for us to get pregnant. It would be damaging for me to stay in an unhappy job for that long.

Anyway what I need advice on is how to handle this as professionally as possible. I like the contract and the agents have been nice so far. If I tell them immediately, they could end my contract and I would be without a job till possibly Jan 2020 as it wouldn't make sense to get another job till I have the baby. If I tell them closer to when I am ready to go on Mat leave, I feel it would be unprofessional?

How best to handle this? What are the consequences of ending my contract 4 months early (contract says 1 week notice)? Any way I can handle this such that if the client likes me I could still have the opportunity to approach same agent/client after mat leave? I don't want to be dishonest and want to handle this as clean as possible while making sure I am not out of work for the next 8+ months.

For anyone who feels I messed up, I agree to some extent and I feel bad about the situation. Please help me.

Thank you. sorry for the length of the post.

[NotAllThere]

You haven't messed up. You want kids, and now you're pregnant - that's only good news. Congratulations.

Professionally speaking, I don't think you've any moral obligation immediately to tell the agency or the client. Your starting point should be employment law - legally you don't have to tell your employer until 25 weeks. Obviously, the agency and client aren't your employer. Secondly, not all pregnancies go full term - the chances of loss are highest in the first 3 months. For that reason, when my daughter in law got pregnant, we told no-one outside the family until she was more than 3 months gone. That's really the point where the pregnancy is established.

In my opinion, the time to tell the agency is after 3 months. That gives them time to find your replacement. You could find someone to replace you, and sub them in through your own company for the remainder of the project.

Until that time, try not to look too happy. That's a giveaway...

[andyg]

Personally I wouldn't tell them until much nearer the due date. I would imagine that as you start to show then your colleagues will notice that you've ahem 'changed' (your baby bump) and may make an educated guess that you are pregnant.
You say that your contract states a one week notice clause and professionally that is what you need to give to exit the contract. But perhaps as you get more comfortable with the role and possibly less comfortable with travelling (I'm guessing here) to work/being in an office environment for a long duration, then you may want to mention the fact and offer a period of knowledge transfer to your replacement. In this way you won't be burning any bridges and if you want to go back to work post baby then you will have a good relationship with the end client (and be out of any handcuff clause with the agency ;-) ).
Interestingly, I worked with a colleague in a similar situtation as you find yourself and she chose to tell her superior straight away and he fired her on the spot (was in Doha, Qatar and so different rules applied for expats).
Good luck with baby.

[uk contractor]

Do not tell the agency until you are about 6-7 months into the pregnancy.

They seem nice people to you now so do the client but trust me on this I have well over 20 years IT contracting experience. If you tell them soon they will replace you fast. Do a good job for 6-7 months then tell the client first see what they say BEFORE telling the agency otherwise the agency will find your replacement & try to talk the client into accepting them to preserve their income stream. I have seen this happen several times as well over the years. The agency will seem nice to you now as your about to be an easy income generator for what they expect is a long time! Their attitude will change drastically when you have to tell them. Forget loyalty its a one way street. Do the 6-7 months to get some money your going to need for your new family then tell them & they will still most likely let you work up to month 8 if you want to.

Best case scenario is if the end client likes you they will invite you back in the future if you do a good job and they like you as a person. The agency is quite literally the last priority you want to tell. Once you have been recruited just taking a cut from your earnings & will have little to any day to day contact so do not deserve to be told until the last possible moment around the 6-7 months mark gives them time to find a replacement.

[worrieduk]

You haven't messed up. You want kids, and now you're pregnant - that's only good news. Congratulations.

Professionally speaking, I don't think you've any moral obligation immediately to tell the agency or the client. Your starting point should be employment law - legally you don't have to tell your employer until 25 weeks. Obviously, the agency and client aren't your employer. Secondly, not all pregnancies go full term - the chances of loss are highest in the first 3 months. For that reason, when my daughter in law got pregnant, we told no-one outside the family until she was more than 3 months gone. That's really the point where the pregnancy is established.

In my opinion, the time to tell the agency is after 3 months. That gives them time to find your replacement. You could find someone to replace you, and sub them in through your own company for the remainder of the project.

Until that time, try not to look too happy. That's a giveaway...

Thank you very much. Yes it is very early days and we haven't told any family members. Hopefully everything works out fine. I made sure the substitution clause was very clear in the contract so hopefully I can use it but the compliance checks took over 2 months before I was allowed to start. We would have to crack on early.

[worrieduk]

Do not tell the agency until you are about 6-7 months into the pregnancy.

They seem nice people to you now so do the client but trust me on this I have well over 20 years IT contracting experience. If you tell them soon they will replace you fast. Do a good job for 6-7 months then tell the client first see what they say BEFORE telling the agency otherwise the agency will find your replacement & try to talk the client into accepting them to preserve their income stream. I have seen this happen several times as well over the years. The agency will seem nice to you now as your about to be an easy income generator for what they expect is a long time! Their attitude will change drastically when you have to tell them. Forget loyalty its a one way street. Do the 6-7 months to get some money your going to need for your new family then tell them & they will still most likely let you work up to month 8 if you want to.

Best case scenario is if the end client likes you they will invite you back in the future if you do a good job and they like you as a person. The agency is quite literally the last priority you want to tell. Once you have been recruited just taking a cut from your earnings & will have little to any day to day contact so do not deserve to be told until the last possible moment around the 6-7 months mark gives them time to find a replacement.

Thank you. It is 100% work from home luckily so they most likely won't notice anything till I tell them. I will take your advice on board. I hope the agent won't be cross if I approached the client first.

As advised by notallthere, I could also try to use a substitute but whether they will cooperate is another thing. When I was trying to fully understand how it would work, they said no one has used it.

[mudskipper]

Thank you. It is 100% work from home luckily so they most likely won't notice anything till I tell them.

In that case leave it as long as you can. Leaving your client with a week's notice may be contractually allowed, but it would likely leave them in the lurch and burn bridges. Do what you think is reasonable - 4 or 6 weeks notice for a handover.

And congratulations!

[worrieduk]

In that case leave it as long as you can. Leaving your client with a week's notice may be contractually allowed, but it would likely leave them in the lurch and burn bridges. Do what you think is reasonable - 4 or 6 weeks notice for a handover.

And congratulations!

Thank you

[northernladuk]

You haven't messed up. You want kids, and now you're pregnant - that's only good news. Congratulations.
...

This +1. Congratulations.

What everyone else has said really. Hopefully your client will understand and can both work out the best situation for both parties.

[CoolCat]

dont feel guilty its just business

dont tell them until as late as possible

work back from when you will want to go, add on your notice period or about a month, and use that as a baseline ( it may become obvious before then, if so be open and honest with end client but still no need to tell agent as they are unlikely to know if they are not actually seeing you regularly). do you want to work again after some leave? if so this end client maybe a good place to go back to?

establish good relationship with the end client and tell them before the agent, work out with the end client what they (and you) want to do about it, then tell the agent

dont tell the agent too soon or they will be very naughty

good luck, if youre in the midlands come round for a coffee we have lots of experience on kiddie issues

cheers