When my team and I work with organizations to help them transform how they handle parental leave, we often find ourselves in the position of being coaches who need to give pep talks to expecting parents.
Understandably, many women and men worry how taking parental leave might affect their careers. They’ve seen people whose careers were stifled after they returned from leave. So, many people don’t use all the parental leave they have available. As Business Insider puts it, “Parental leave is the greatest benefit workers don’t take.”
It’s the organizations that need to make big changes — not a fight for expecting parents to lead on their own. Executives must ensure that their businesses have strong, competitive parental leave policies and eliminate any bias or negative consequences for those who take it.
Still, I encourage employees to “advocate for yourself the way you advocate for your child, even in utero.” I explain that they should explore their employer’s leave policies and push for better ones if necessary, or tell their managers about other ways the organization should support expecting parents. Being a changemaker is a great thing. “You can make noise in any way that is authentic to you,” I tell them.
But fear is powerful, and many employees don’t want to “rock the boat,” particularly when their lives are already in upheaval with the expected arrival of a new child (whether their first or a new member of a growing family). So those who take parental leave often hope that they’ll be able to return to work and jump right back in afterward without needing to make any adjustments or get any accommodations.
However, when their leave nears its end, that idea can start to feel impossible. Some people feel overwhelmed, and question whether they should go back.
This is why I tell organizations: The biggest key to making the return from parental leave successful is to have supportive, future-oriented managers. And since men still hold the majority of managerial positions, more often than not, it’s a call for good men.
Endless possibilities
A perfect example is a senior executive at a major law firm we’re working with. A fantastic female employee called him, very upset, near the end of her parental leave. “I don’t think I can come back,” she said.
She explained that the notoriously grueling hours and the accompanying exhaustion just couldn’t fit with her new life as a mom. Of course she felt this way. Why wouldn’t she? When you’re dealing with the around-the-clock nature of caring for a newborn, the last thing you can do is try to come up with a solution for what seems to be such an insurmountable problem. The only ideas that made sense to her were to leave the firm for a different job or pause her career altogether.
But he responded, “I get that you’re scared, and it doesn’t seem possible to work and keep up being a great mom.” He offered to get back to her soon with some potential solutions, to see what they could work out.
This executive then called her, putting just about every option on the table. Limited hours or days? A smaller case load? Working from home? Most importantly, he asked what would be best for her. He didn’t pressure her; he offered. And he said that nothing needed to be set in stone. They could take it one step at a time.
She decided to give it a shot. It’s been going beautifully. She feels more fulfilled in her life, keeping her career going while also thriving as a mother.
Future vs. past orientation
While having a conversation like this may seem obvious from the outside, it’s all too rare inside organizations. It’s easy for people to assume that the culture of an organization demands a certain style or pace of work, so employees need to take it or leave it.
I see it as a matter of being future-oriented rather than past-oriented. Great managers work to foresee a future in which basic operations and established practices can change. They’re willing to recognize patterns in their businesses that may have existed for years or decades but don’t have to continue.
These managers help their organizations reap big rewards. Businesses are locked in a war for talent, and need to compete to attract and retain great employees. Many moms and dads who leave their jobs after parental leave stay in the workforce, they just move to organizations that are more supportive. In fact, the labor force participation rate for women has reached new highs, and mothers with kids under the age of five “are powering the pack’s upward trajectory,” according to The Hamilton Project.
So I tell managers: If you don’t get with the program and come up with ways to make parental leave successful, your whole organization will lose out. (I’m a big fan of rhymes, so I sometimes say, “If you don’t finagle this bagel, you’ll be hurtin’ for certain.”)
Through my work, I meet great people including managers all the time who are committed to improving work life. They just need to know that it’s possible.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
