HR experts: Bosses must understand miscarriage better and help ease pain of women workers

Firms must be more aware of the mental and physical impact of miscarriage, assisted conception and menopause on women workers, according to human resource professionals.

Calls for a change in attitudes in the workplace come after a bill introduced by SNP MP Angela Crawley to offer at least three days of paid leave to women after a miscarriage failed to get to a second reading in Westminster due to lack of time. At present, parents are only entitled to paid bereavement leave following a stillbirth after 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Sarah Prasad, senior HR business partner at Head Resourcing, thinks the lack of understanding and support stems from a failure to properly acknowledge or discuss women’s bodies and health.

She said: “Female bodies and health are still taboo. Society in the UK still has this oppressed and unhealthy relationship with women’s bodies and what they do and even, to an extent, male bodies too. The laws that are in place to support businesses don’t help either, and so it is woven into the fibre of our society.”

Prasad does not believe that businesses are being deliberately neglectful but instead thinks company owners shrink away from dealing effectively with such difficult subject matters, leaving their leaders and managers without the relevant training to support colleagues when problems inevitably arise.

She added: “Pregnancy loss happens a lot, one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage but that doesn’t deplete the sadness of it when it happens. Fertility treatments can often be very invasive.

“You can do some practical things to support people, but it starts with really listening to individuals that have are having those experiences. It’s not about assuming that by doing this and that by the book that you are covered and can brush it away. Every case is individual, and what they feel they need might be lots of different things but at least you are getting feedback on better ways to deal with it.”

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Prasad herself had a miscarriage, and found that while her mostly male colleagues tried their best to be supportive, they had no idea what to say when she returned to work, or how to help her.

“It was my first pregnancy, and being pregnant for the first time is like being in love for the first time, and the disappointment and the sadness when the loss happened was almost at the same level,” she said. “No one really knew what to say to me and I found that hard because I felt very vulnerable. I felt quite weak and lost my confidence massively. Perhaps if I had had a couple of coaching sessions to help me get back into a strong mental state it would have been easier. It wasn’t horrendous, but I can see how it could have been managed better.”

Lynn White, founder of Talent On Leave, an organisation that supports individuals and businesses through maternity and paternity leave, always encourages her clients to be empathetic. She said: “There is often an underlying fear of getting it wrong. We then see a reliance on legal processes and policy and these sticky transaction conversations which lead to mishandled moments.

“When employees feel supported and understood in the workplace, they are better able to connect with the world around them. Employee connection then has an impact on performance, ambition, and retention within the organisation.

“Business owners are realising that they have to go deeper than box ticking. There’s a lot of talk about being inclusive and diversity but employees can’t just see it, they have to feel it too for that to be possible. You have to have leaders who know and genuinely feel the policies they are using to support employees.”

Crawley said: “I will do everything in my power to keep fighting for this change in the law. Parents who experience a miscarriage or stillbirth deserve to be properly supported and given the time they may need to grieve and process their loss, without worrying about a hit to finances because of days off or having to use some of their annual leave just to get time off.”