When an Employee Tells You They're Pregnant: A Practical Guide for SMEs
Early in my in-house career, a manager came to me slightly panicked because one of his team had just told him she was pregnant. His very first reaction was to start listing everything she needed to hand over before maternity leave, how the desk would be covered, how the team would cope. Entirely understandable concerns for someone running a busy team. But he had skipped a step. I had to gently remind him to go back and, first, congratulate her.
It sounds too obvious to need saying. But in the rush to work out the operational impact, it is surprisingly easy to forget that a pregnancy announcement is, first and foremost, a human moment. (Not every pregnancy is wanted, and sensitivity matters there too, but most are, and they deserve to be acknowledged and celebrated before anyone mentions handover notes.)
That moment captures the whole challenge for an SME. When an employee tells you she is expecting, you are managing several things at once: a person who deserves warmth and support, the very real prospect of a key team member being out of the business for up to a year, and a set of obligations you need to get right. The good news is that none of this is as daunting as it first looks, and with a clear head you can handle it confidently. Here is what to do, and what to watch out for.
Get the first conversation right
Congratulate her. Ask how she is feeling and whether there is anything she needs from you. Only then move on to practicalities, and even then, lead with reassurance rather than logistics.
This is not just good manners, although it is that. Pregnancy and maternity are protected under the Equality Act 2010, and how you handle the first conversation sets the tone for everything that follows. A response that leads with anxiety about cover, rather than support for the individual, is exactly the kind of thing that sours a relationship and, in the wrong circumstances, gets scrutinised later. So pause, be human, and celebrate the news. The handover plan can wait a day.
Carry out a risk assessment
Once you know an employee is pregnant, your health and safety duties step up, and this is the area founders most often overlook.
In practice there is a simple ladder to work through. Assess the risks her work poses to her or the baby. If there is a significant risk, adjust her working conditions or hours to remove it. If that isn't reasonable or doesn't solve it, offer suitable alternative work on terms that aren't substantially worse. And if there is no suitable alternative, you might need to suspend her on full pay for as long as is needed to keep her safe.
Don't rely on gut feeling. Changing someone’s role "to be safe" without a proper assessment is how employers end up on the wrong side of a discrimination claim; the changes you make must be justified by a genuine assessment, reducing risk to its lowest acceptable level rather than simply removing her from her role.
Common risks to look at include heavy lifting, long hours, standing for long periods, temperature, and work-related stress.
Allow time off for antenatal appointments
This one is simple: all pregnant employees have a statutory right to paid time off for antenatal care, regardless of hours worked or length of service. There is no qualifying period.
The practical step is to make sure your managers know this and handle requests supportively. Grumbling about antenatal appointments is an unforced error that signals the wrong attitude and creates needless risk.
Note, however, that the right relates to antenatal appointments with a doctor or midwife, it doesn’t include voluntary classes such as pregnancy yoga or NCT classes.
Know what continues during maternity leave
I'll leave the detail of notification deadlines and maternity leave timing to one side, as it is complicated and best handled case by case (a clear maternity policy helps). But there are a few core principles every employer should know:
- The contract continues. Apart from pay, all her terms and benefits continue during maternity leave, including the accrual of contractual annual leave and things like health insurance or a company car. Continuous service keeps building too, which matters for redundancy and service-related entitlements.
- Don't freeze her out. You can stay in reasonable contact during maternity leave, and it is good practice to agree with your employee before she leaves how much contact she wants and how. Keep her on the distribution list for news, vacancies, and training unless she asks otherwise. Failing to tell someone about a vacancy or opportunity she would have wanted, simply because she is on leave, is a genuine discrimination risk, not just a courtesy issue.
- KIT days are optional. She can work up to ten keeping-in-touch (KIT) days without ending her maternity leave, but you can't require her to work these and she can't insist on doing so. It is unlawful to penalise her either way.
Handle redundancy with care
Genuine redundancy situations do occur and employees who are pregnant or on maternity leave can be made redundant. However, employees who are pregnant or who have taken maternity leave have enhanced protection in a redundancy situation: a priority right to a suitable alternative vacancy. In practice this protection now usually runs from the point she tells you she is pregnant until 18 months after the birth.
The law on redundancy during pregnancy or during & shortly after maternity leave is complicated, with unfair dismissal and discrimination claims a common outcome. Given how easily this goes wrong, any redundancy touching a pregnant employee or someone on or recently back from maternity leave is one to take advice on before you act.
Get annual leave right
Holiday during maternity leave trips up a lot of employers, but the principle is simple: annual leave continues to accrue (statutory and contractual) throughout maternity leave, and you can't take holiday and maternity leave at the same time.
So plan it. Once your employee tells you she is pregnant, work out her remaining holiday and discuss how much she wants to take, often just before leave starts. Where she can't use her statutory holiday in the year because of maternity leave, she is entitled to carry it over. One word of caution: if you encourage her to take all her holiday before leave and she then leaves the business before the year ends, you may have overpaid her, and you can only recover that if the contract allows it. This is a point worth checking in your contracts.
You can still manage performance, carefully
A common misconception is that you can't manage the performance or conduct of someone who is pregnant. You can. Being pregnant or on maternity leave is not a shield against a legitimate, fair process.
Of course, you do need to take extra care that the process is genuinely about the issue and not connected to the pregnancy or any pregnancy-related absence or maternity leave.
In practice this means:
· follow your procedure properly and document it;
· adapt to the circumstances (respect agreed communication preferences, give plenty of notice and be flexible about meeting attendance); and
· never let pregnancy-related sickness or maternity absence count against her in promotion, benefits, or any similar judgement.
Again, this is an area where you are recommended to seek advice before acting.
What's coming
It's worth knowing the protections here are getting stronger. The Employment Rights Act 2025 gives the government power to prohibit dismissing pregnant employees and new mothers for up to six months after their return to work, except in specific circumstances, with regulations expected in 2027. The margin for error is shrinking, which makes getting your processes right now even more worthwhile.
Practical steps to take now
Brief your managers to lead with warmth, know the basics, and know when to escalate.
Build the risk assessment for new and expectant mothers into your general assessment now, not when someone becomes pregnant.
Have a clear maternity policy so you're not inventing the response each time.
Check your contracts deal with overpaid holiday and reflect the benefits that continue during leave.
Know when to seek advice Redundancy, pay questions around altered duties, and any performance process are all worth early advice.
Final Thoughts
Supporting a pregnant employee well isn't mostly about complex legal manoeuvring. It is about combining genuine decency with a sound grasp of your obligations, and applying both consistently.
And if you are ever unsure, take advice early. Almost every expensive pregnancy and maternity dispute I have seen could have been avoided by a short conversation at the right moment, rather than a difficult one after the event.
At New Road Consultancy, we help businesses handle these situations confidently and commercially, from getting your policies and risk assessments right to advising on a live maternity, redundancy, or performance issue. If you'd like to talk through how any of this applies to your business, we're here to help.
This article is for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Specific legal or strategic advice should be sought separately and tailored to the particular circumstances of your business. If you would like to discuss how these issues apply to your organisation, please get in touch.
