my employee didn’t tell anyone she was pregnant, until right before she gave birth

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

A reader writes:

A while back, an employee who reported to me (I’m a man) became visibly pregnant soon after she started. But she never brought it up. Not with me, not with HR, not with anyone. I didn’t ask her about it, though nearly everyone else in our office asked me. I cringed when I responded since it was obvious she was pregnant but I felt that I needed to protect her privacy. I felt like I was walking around on pins and needles with this very obvious elephant in the room.

Her job description included occasionally lifting objects up to 40 pounds and the only way I treated her differently was I went out of my way to pick up anything remotely heavy.

Eventually she was put on bed rest and had her baby a week later. She did not return to the organization.

The office was a very friendly place and I know the employees would have loved to have thrown her a baby shower and all those fun things. But I realize I was handed a hot potato, from several different angles. Should I have addressed this directly with her? Or was I fine to ignore it?

I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

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