Maternity leave is small price for staff loyalty

I dropped over to see my sister and newest nephew recently - I can't believe he's over three months old already and that she's getting her head around the notion of returning to work. When she first arrived home from her extended hospital stay, the summer seemed to stretch out gloriously in front of us. Now it's been and gone and her son has turned from a scrawny little mite into a baby whose best-known impression is that of the Incredible Hulk bursting out of baby-grows.

You'd think that three to four months is a long time to be out of work but it's amazing how short a time it actually is, especially when half of it is spent being awake in the middle of the night and the other half is spent in making sure you've got a competent childminder or a place in a registered creche for the day that your return to the office.

Most of my married-with-children friends are in a perpetual state of fear that their childminder will suddenly move or change jobs or otherwise leave them, literally, holding the baby. The power that a decent childminder holds over parents is awesome.

This newspaper published a graph some months ago illustrating the number of weeks paid parental leave to which Irish parents are entitled. Not surprisingly, paid paternal leave is unavailable here. Rather more surprisingly, Ireland was bottom of a league of 15 countries when it came to maternity leave. Mothers in Belgium can avail of 260 weeks, the Germans, the French and the Finns have 156 while, next to ourselves, the Greeks and the Spaniards have 16. The Spaniards can also avail of around 4 months unpaid leave against our one.

I suppose that most employers think that that the employee who's just disappeared for a quarter or a third of the year is on to a good thing. And who can blame them - they have to (possibly) employ temporary staff to fill the gap and/or redeploy the staff who are already there to provide adequate cover for the sleepless mother. Even female employers, who may be more sympathetic to the overall concept, can grit their teeth at the idea of someone taking maternity leave.

And, in the meantime, most mothers feel a little guilty. When we talk about working mothers and guilt we usually talk about how guilty they can feel about leaving their children. We rarely talk about how guilty they also feel about leaving colleagues at what could be a busy time of the year. And when they do return to work, they can feel guilty if they have to make an emergency rush home to decide whether their child is actually in the throes of an unidentified illness or whether their heir has just realised that holding his or her breath for long enough can cause panic all around.

(In one of life's little ironies, however, it turns out that when one of the men in the office says that he has to go home to look after his child he's applauded for being a sensitive soul in touch with his inner self.)

All the same, the attitude of companies makes such a difference to working mothers. Since I'm not a working mother my knowledge comes entirely at second hand, but in general most of the companies for whom I've worked have been very understanding, both in terms of maternity leave and afterwards. In return, they get a standard of loyalty from their experienced workforce that's hard to beat.

Whatever about one of their bright and shining stars being lured away by promises of better packages, most mothers are so grateful to a company that treats them well that they don't even consider the possibility of moving. So a few months maternity leave in the middle of a fruitful working career should be seen as an investment rather than a tiresome obligation. And real assets are always a good investment.

Although maybe not the gold necklaces anymore . . . Gold has risen from its lows of $256 (€242.45) last month when the Bank of England sold over half its reserves to $262 at the beginning of the week. Nevertheless, the Bank of England is still a seller and gold's value has fallen consistently over the past 10 years. Switzerland has also indicated an interest in selling and one can't help thinking that a bounce, no matter how small, is just good news for anyone who wants to offload their holdings. I'm not melting down the jewellery yet, but I'm glad that I only bought it for its decorative properties!

Switching to other assets may be more profitable. Bond and equity markets continue to struggle in the slowest time of the year. Markets are somewhat paralysed by the imminent Federal Open Market Committee meeting - a lot of dealers have thrown in the towel and gone on holidays. I'm amused to read we now "fear" interest rate hikes.

Actually, at this point, the market expects them and has pretty much discounted them. The fear would be more that everyone is wrong.

I'm not normally too keen on falling asset prices, but I'm glad to see that coffee futures have fallen. Prices were at a high back in March at $1,800 per metric tonne but have fallen to around $1,300 now. There's been plenty of supply and the one possible glitch - frosts in Brazil - have, so far, failed to materialise. In fact, it looks like being a bumper harvest for coffee this year.

This is good news for those of us who need a morning shot of caffeine before they can function like normal human beings. I don't have my first cup until I reach the office. Last Monday (first in the queue) I had to open the cateringsize tin. Such was my enthusiasm for the task that I didn't notice I'd sliced the top off my thumb until after I'd brought my coffee back to the desk.

I couldn't understand what on earth the reddish-brown splashes were until I finally copped on that I was bleeding all over the place. Now I understand what they mean when they say that there's blood on the streets. And, just like markets, it hurt like hell too.

Sheila O'Flanagan is a fixed-income specialist at NCB Stockbrokers