Host Kortney Ross dives deep into the significant costs businesses face when they lack proper support structures for working parents, particularly those dealing with pregnancy and lactation-related issues. Kortney highlights startling statistics and shares real-world examples to illustrate just how much organizations can lose—both financially and in terms of talent retention—when they fail to provide necessary accommodations. She also emphasizes the importance of awareness and training, especially with the implementation of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. If you're keen on building a family-friendly, future-ready workplace, this episode is a must-listen.

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Welcome to the NextGen Work Culture podcast, where leaders learn

to support working parents. Because being a family friendly

business isn't just a nice to have anymore. It's

essential for businesses that want to stay competitive, and it is

critical for the next generation and those who are raising them. I'm

your host, Courtney Ross, and I am so glad that you're here.

Welcome back to the NextGen work culture. We're

coming at you with a solo episode today. I want to

talk about how much it can cost an

organization if they don't have

support in place for working parents. Specifically, we're

going to talk about pregnancy and lactation related

issues. So let's pretend that

a company has about 40

employees working for them, 40 female employees.

The statistics show that about 30 of them are going to

become pregnant during their career. And

if you don't have good support structures in

place, chances are about

six of those original 40 are going to leave. Because around

20% of women quit work just

before or shortly after giving birth. The cost

of replacing each of those employees is probably going to cost about

six to nine months of their salary. So let's say

for easy math that each of them makes $100,000 a year.

That means it's going to cost at least $50,000 to

replace each one of those six employees that left

just because they weren't feeling supported during or after their

pregnancy. Now, multiply that by six and you've got about

$300,000 just in the cost to

replace these employees that you've lost.

And if one of them left because they felt that they were being

discriminated against during their pregnancy, and they file a pregnancy

discrimination claim, the average cost of those, if

you settle outside of court, is about

$18,000. So those

costs added up really quickly for a relatively small

organization of just about 40 female employees.

Now, let's say that you're a much larger company

with about 1000 female employees.

That math is going to really add up, because out of

those 1000 employees, 75% of them, or about

750, are going to become pregnant at some time during their

career. And that's going to cost over seven and a half

million dollars in recruiting and training new

employees to replace the all of the pregnant women

who are leaving either shortly before or shortly

after they give birth. So

why is this important? Why should we be

caring about supporting pregnant employees in the workforce?

Well, times have changed significantly. In the early

1960s, only about 44% of women

worked at all during their pregnancy. But

in the early two thousands, that went up to about

66% of mothers who gave birth to their first child between

2006 and 2000, 866 percent of those

moms were working during their pregnancy. And in the early

1960s, only about 35% of women

actually worked up to that 9th month of pregnancy, and

82% worked into the final month

in the early two thousands. That's a pretty big difference.

So now we have up to 82% of women

working up to or very near their due dates while

they are pregnant. And that was just not happening

40, 50, 60 years ago. So now we have the

pregnant Workers Fairness act in place. We have the pregnancy

Discrimination act. We have some laws that are supposed to help

ensure that women are getting the support that they need at work,

that they're not being discriminated against, that they're getting the accommodations that they

need. But we still have a lot of organizations that just aren't

quite getting it right. But times have

changed. We have a lot of women who are breadwinners or

are single parents. And our workplaces

really have got to catch up to

the new norm. And it's not even new. It's been

around for decades now. It's just time that we got up.

Let's think about a couple of examples of

when it could really cost you if you don't have this sort

of support or accommodations routines in

place in 2020. There

was a very large food processing plant, Purdue,

who told a pregnant employee that she

was not going to be able to keep water nearby and have extra

restroom breaks when she came back to work. She had a high risk

pregnancy. She was coming back off of

having an infection, and those were the bare minimum things she needed just to be

able to do her job. She needed extra water, and she needed to go to

the bathroom more often. And an HR manager told her that that

wasn't going to be possible, that she needed to take leave

and apply for short term disability, which she

did, but she was still eventually fired, and they cited that her

extended absence was the reason. Of course, she got

very upset about this, as she should have, and she filed a suit

claiming discrimination due to sex, pregnancy, and

disability. Poor Duke settled out of court. So I don't know

the exact cost of this litigation, but I'm sure

it was a lot. And this was before the pregnant workers

Fairness act. Now, under the

PWFA, we have some

accommodations that just must be done every time they're asked for. These are

called predictable assessments. And those predictable assessments are

the right to carry or keep drinking water nearby, have extra

bathroom breaks, sit or stand, the opposite of what may

be normal for the job and have extra breaks for eating and

drinking. So that would have been a clear cut case under

the Pregnant Workers Fairness act, that this woman absolutely

should have been given those accommodations. But one manager told her

no, and that cost the company a lot of money to file

outside of court. Earlier this year, in 2024,

Walmart also had some problems where a

manager told a female employee that she was

not promoted just because she was a mother with young children. And this isn't

exactly related to pregnancy. But of course, she had gone through

a couple of pregnancies to get to those children. Probably. But

this is just an example where one manager cost the

company a lot, and I think we're going to run into that problem

very frequently with the Pregnant Workers Fairness act. The EEOC

even specifically states that managers must

be trained to be able

to recognize accommodation requests, which may be a simple conversation

or even something like a text message from an employee. And

they must be trained to act on those requests quickly.

So they need to know the predictable assessments. They need to know what to do

if a pregnant employee asks for accommodations, and they need to

know how to do it quickly, they have to be empowered to do it themselves

without going through a bunch of hoops and loops and jumps and

paperworks and forms or third party

providers like that is just not going to be acceptable under the Pregnant

Workers Fairness act. So it's super important

that companies train their managers

on this new law that they understand they have

to give accommodations and that they have to support

women or employees during their pregnancy and

after, during the phases of lactation or maybe

postpartum depression or other issues come up. That's all

covered under the Pregnant Workers Fairness act, and it can really cost the company

a lot of money if they're not doing this.

The settlement for that Walmart case

that I mentioned, where one manager messed up,

told an employee that she wasn't promoted

just because of her children. The cost of that was

$60,000 in settlement fines, plus, I'm sure, an

additional corpath costs, and they had to promise to train all

of their managers. And that wasn't even a claim under the

Pregnant Workers Fairness act. That was just a discrimination claim. The Pregnant Workers

Fairness act, we are going to start seeing claims that are going to cost

companies a lot of money when most of it is going to

boil down to one manager was asked by one

employee for a relatively

simple and short term accommodation.

So if your managers don't know about this, they absolutely need to.

And if you need some help training them, you could check out

courtneyross.com leadershiptraining to learn more about

the programs that I offer to help, be sure that all of the

frontline managers understand how to comply with this new law, because it's

super important and it can cost your organization a lot of money if you

don't do it. So go check it out.

If you enjoyed this episode, I know you'll love the future ready work

culture framework. Head over to courtneyross.com

framework to download your copy and start building a family

friendly, future ready workplace today. Don't

forget to subscribe to the NextGen work culture so you never miss an

episode. I'd love it if you'd also take a moment to leave a

review. Until next time, take care.