MONEY MORAL DILEMMA. Should Ian hire a waitress who may want kids?

David_Cameron wrote: »

If Ian has fewer than five employees then he has certain exemptions from various rules which apply to larger businesses. He needs to study those carefully.

As to the dilemma posed, my advice would be to employ the best person for the job, but how you decide that is ENTIRELY at YOUR discretion ! No one can come along and tell you that you rejected a better candidate and therefore have a problem. You DO NOT have a problem because they are simply using THEIR definition of 'better', NOT YOURS !! You are under NO OBLIGATION to explain your definition of 'better'.

You might have decided that you want to help a mentally sub-normal person in this instance and you feel that they can be trained to perform the duties perfectly to YOUR SATISFACTION. You are under no obligation to employ one of the !!!!!! from The Apprentice !

Firstly, you have an obligation to your business to employ people who get on well together, so, if all your waiters are white male homosexuals with blond hair, you might want to shy away from a sixteen stone heterosexual bald black body-builder with fifteen piercings around his nose and mouth. That isn't racial, its simple common sense ! Put another way, the fault was his for applying for a job for which his personal choices render him unsuitable. He could be the best waiter ever to hoist a tray, but that is only one of many factors relating to his employability in YOUR particular business. This isn't the workplace for him and you would NOT break the law by rejecting his application.

Secondly, what kind of customers do you have and what would they find acceptable? Personally I don't like being served by homosexuals, so I would avoid the cafe cited above. I have no objection to being served by a lady who is past child-bearing age. They are often so much more polite than the younger females of today. I know its a generalisation and there are always exceptions, but I report my personal experience --- yours might be different.

Thirdly, you are not under any obligation to provide employment in the first place, so if someone doesn't like your choices, let THEM go and hawk themselves up to the eyeballs in debt to start their own business --- then let's see if they follow the choice they want you to make and go bust, or do they now operate their business in the best interests of its proprietor, its employees and its customers --- which is exactly what you should be doing.

Lastly, if you get some 'friction' from ANY official over your choice to reject the child-bearing aged female, you can simply point out that YOU own the business, YOU pay the wages, YOU make the decisions ! --- and you do your best to comply with the law. If they don't like it, tough !!

Ian owns his business and is therefore TOP MANAGEMENT which can be a lonely place. Ian needs to do what Ian wants to do and NOT what Ian thinks others might want him to do.

It isn't possible for a small business to operate WITHOUT breaking laws ! They come out of the EU at such a rate that larger companies have whole departments just trying to keep up with their obligations under the law ! These departments are typically larger than fifty percent of UK businesses !

PC creates more problems than it solves, therefore, PC= Poppycock !

Susan_Frost wrote: »

I think if she is offered the job SHE SHOULD REFUSE IT. Why would a newly married person, with probably a relatively new mortgage pin her financial security on a business which may be failing. Baby or no baby. And if she is hoping to become pregnant reasonably soon, why go for a job she could lose before getting in her qualifying weeks for maternity leave.

DONT TAKE THE JOB. ALTHOUGH NOTHING IS GUARANTEED ANYWAY - GET SOMETHING WITH MORE LIKELIHOOD OF SECURITY