Breast Pump

lhill

I'm not sure which forum to post this on, but I'll start here. We have a call center with glass cubicles. There are six women who work in this center. There are men who also go into the area: IT, security, janitor, their male supervisor, our GM, etc. It was brought to my attention that an employee was sitting at her desk using a breast pump. This made the male employee that walked into the room very uncomfortable. I want to talk to the female employee and see if we can make accommodation elsewhere in the building to provide privacy for her as well as make the atmosphere less embarrassing for hapless male employees who stumble upon this situation. Will I get into trouble by offering an alternate location for her? How would you handle it?

Linda

ray a

We have offered the use of a private office to employees for that purpose.

LarryC

We also offer a private office for expressing. Faced with your situation, Linda, I not only would offer the private room, I would require it.

HRinNH

No, but you may get into trouble if you don't!

There are no women in our office at the age they'd want to have children, but if we hired one with this need, we'd find an empty office quick!

Cheryl C.

SMace

I need pictures before I can make a professional decision.

PS..what they said.

TN HR

You need to be very careful in how you approach this as far as the male employee is concerned. It is he you should be worried about not her.

Gene

lhill

Thanks, everyone, for your input. The situation has been resolved (happily) for everyone. I spoke to the new mom and found that she didn't know she had an option about location. I told her we have an empty office at present and she can use it. It has a lock as well. She was very pleased. As for the male employee, he is a married guy who, while being uncomfortable being around a co-worker who is expressing, is not the hysterical type. He, in fact, is the one in charge of the facility and made sure the empty office has a comfortable chair for her use. What really gets my knickers in a twist are that things like this are going on and no one thinks to let HR know there's a problem. Life could be so simple!

Linda