Is chipping away at transparency the best way to deal with maternity leave discrimination?

Caroline Bullock asks whether employers should have a right to know when a mother might return from maternity leave

Most women will still be upfront about their intentions, but the fact remains they don’t have to be (Getty/iStock)

As I congratulated my colleague on her second pregnancy, I was inwardly mourning the imminent loss of momentum gained within our fledging team.

Office teams and the working culture can be delicate beasts, a dynamic easily skewed by change and disruption. In the few months since returning from her first maternity leave, a slow-burning bond had grown among our small group, as it transitioned into a tight unit that was more productive – a measure of progress and team spirit that I knew would be curbed by another cycle of temporary cover.

I was right – it was. Though in the wake of a new ruling on pregnancy discrimination this month, I’m reminded that things could have been far worse. Crucially, we knew when our colleague was due back, something that is always helpful when trying to plan and organise workload and forthcoming projects. Now, employers may be denied this basic information, after a tribunal ruled it discriminatory to ask a pregnant woman prior to her taking maternity leave if she would return to work.