We are a company of 15 employees. Must we offer maternity leave? The leave policy we currently have in effect states that we have no maternity or disability leave policy. When maternity/disability leave is requested, we will allow up to six weeks of unpaid leave, however, we are not obligated to hold open their position under FMLA. We have also stated that we will attempt to hold an employees job for up to 6 weeks and hire temporary help or have their position covered by other employees, but if we have problem in getting the position covered, we will be forced to hire someone to take the employees place and the employee would be terminated. We did state that we would contact the employee on maternity/disability leave to ascertain whether or not she would be available to return, prior to terminating her. Are there any potential problems with our current policy? :confused:

Nope. As long as you are treating maternity the same as any other disability leave, you are safe. Since you don't qualify for FMLA nor is there a state equivalent in MD, you can make that leave as short or long as you like.

I would give some consideration to whether the 6 weeks is inclusive or exclusive of any accrrued paid leave they may have. In other words, if I have 2 weeks of PTO, do I then get 8 weeks of leave? 2 paid then the 6 unpaid?