ASK HR: Can one be fired for falling pregnant too frequently?

Is it okay for a boss to fire her employee on the account that she has been pregnant too many times? My workmate was sacked upon coming from maternity leave, for the third time in a duration of five years. Her position was filled next day so we concluded it was because of the many leave days she has been taking to take care of her children.

I am surprised that there are employers who still discriminate female employees on account of maternity leave.

We should all celebrate women for the important role they perform of bringing forth life into this world. This is a natural process that is very critical for the survival of our society that it is even enshrined in our employment Act to protect the female employee against any form of discrimination.

There has been good progress in Kenya in terms of enhancing the provisions of maternity leave, thanks to our lawmakers.

In the employment act that was repealed, maternity leave was two months and leave for that year that the employee proceeded on maternity leave was forfeited.

The current Employment Act has a generous provision for maternity leave, which allows a female employee to proceed on leave for a period of three months and even allows annual leave to be combined to extend the maternity leave.

It also provides that when she resumes work the work assigned should be of a similar or higher role to ensure that the time away does not put the female employee into disadvantage.

This is also a personal issue and the employer has no mandate to dictate how many times or how often a female employee proceeds on maternity leave.

Some female employees experience difficulties during this period and it is the responsibility of every employer to give support to the employee to ensure that they have peace of mind during this period.

When she resumes from maternity, she should be offered flexi reporting time to allow her time to take care of the baby. Even where there is no formal policy, HR should encourage an enabling environment where employees are free to discuss this with their supervisors.

More often than not performance is not affected; however, in the event that this is affected what is important is to have a discussion with the supervisor to see how to mitigate against it. However, that said does not mean that female employees should use this as an excuse to underperform during or after the maternity leave.

You are assuming that your colleague was let go unfairly however you don’t have facts.

Advise her to seek redress through the ministry of labour if she was terminated in relation to the maternity leave and the subsequent periods she took her rightfully entitled leave to attend to the children.