Do you know the maternity leave policy of your employer?
For working women who plan to have a baby and start a family at some point, an employers maternity leave policy is an important consideration. Unfortunately, and somewhat surprisingly, there is very little information offered about maternity policy for most companies.
Not only is this information hard to come by, but for a woman trying to land a nice job offer, it can be very difficult to bring it up in an interview and ask straight up on what their policy on maternity leave is.
Pregnancy is a part of life, and it shouldn’t affect a person’s chances of getting a job. But unfortunately, the worry is there.
The good news is, there is now a resource for aspiring mothers to help them in this quest for maternity leave information. And the resource is the Fairygodboss Maternity Leave Resource Center.
Think of Fairygodboss as the Glassdoor for women, and maternity leave policies. An ever-growing database and online community for women to share information and their experiences with current or past employers.
Fairygodboss launched in March 2015 when founder Georgene Huang was looking to switch jobs while pregnant. However, during this search she was disappointed by the lack of available information resources on maternity issues, and eventually sought out to create one herself.
“I knew I wanted to look at a place where women would be treated fairly, where I thought I could have the kind of work culture I believe in…but a lot of the questions I had, I couldn’t find answers,” Huang says. “I was really disappointed that there wasn’t any research around maternity leave policies.”
This resource is a huge step to improve fairness for pregnant women in the workforce. As Fariygodboss grows and attracts more attention, hopefully this will set higher standards for employers and their maternity leave policies, and to help pregnant women during this significant and often times very stressful life transition.