Out of sight, out of mind?

 Ok let’s keep this simple.

I get it. The world has made talking about maternity and parental leave experiences, career planning and return feel like walking a tightrope.

 One wrong conversation and it’s all over.

Individuals are wary of putting their head above the parapet. They want to protect their professional reputation, value and advancement opportunities and say as little as possible about what they need, what they’re nervous of, or secretly want insights on.

Managers want to be supportive but are terrified of saying or doing the wrong thing. What if it feels like I’m crossing the line? What if they don’t want contact? What if there’s stuff going on that I don’t want to share?

 Even in companies where HR plays a crucial role in supporting maternity and parental leave takers/returners, and facilitating conversations between managers and talent, there can be questions. Where can I go beyond the administration of leave and return to boost belonging and engagement?

 So, we get transactional

Policies and processes are followed, good wishes are shared warmly, congratulations are proffered, and then we disentangle.

Time passes, and by the time return ticks around, there are so many unspoken thoughts, intentions, questions, fears, experiences, and assumptions that it feels like a game of chess.

And whilst all the unsaid felt like nice pothole avoidance at the time, you suddenly feel like you’re in a ditch and getting the relationship back on the road again (never mind driving to the next destination) is going to take a tow.

The easiest thing for talent to do is to hit pause or look for a new tow truck.

 And what a missed opportunity!

Communication across leave can play an enormous role in protecting talent belonging, wellbeing, retention, legal risk, and career ambition.

When there is the right kind of contact between managers and talent, everyone wins. It’s engagement instead of estrangement.

And in a space where everyone is even more hungry for it, when careers and talent pipelines feel vulnerable.

It’s not a huge commitment of time or resource either. And that effort up front can save you at least five figures per employee in talent attrition or disengagement.

Autopilot patterns to re-evaluate

Radio silence, tick box contact, low value contact, one size fits all approaches, assuming a platform is all that’s needed, focusing on policies not people.

All of them feel perfunctory, throwaway, inauthentic and impersonal because they are all ignoring the person or treating them like a situation to be managed rather than a colleague on leave.

Too much silence and they feel forgotten; too much meaningless chatter and they feel pestered (or still responsible for work).

So, how do we strike the right balance? Glad you asked…

Reframe Leave

Before you even begin thinking about what good leave communication could look like in your business, it’s worth looking at what your attitude is to leave.

If you see it as a strategic and resource hassle, it’ll come through in your leadership. If you see it as just a risk, your communication can become defensive. Likewise, if you see it as something being done to your business.

I highly recommend familiarising yourself with all the opportunities of maternity/parental leave - for the business to benchmark and re-contract with brilliant talent for the long term as well as for the individual to grow in new ways that will grow their own self-awareness and leadership qualities.

Think less maternity/parental leave, and more ‘secondment’.

Clear objectives

Staying in touch isn’t an objective. It’s not specific enough. So, what can you measure the baseline of comms on leave against?

I like to think of them through the lens of the most common return challenges so that we’re intentionally empowering:

·       Connection that can support the next career chapter

·       Professional confidence, identity, and ambition

·       Employee trust, value and belonging

·       Psychological safety to interact with policies and support

·       Trust of collaboration for return and reboard planning

·       Scaffold for the emergence of a new chapter in the employer/employee relationship

All these objectives are a win for companies and their talent. Nobody loses (if your intentions are authentic). Use them for manipulation and you’ll end up in the ditch anyway.

And breathe

As you know, a good leader doesn’t always have all the answers, they simply know the right questions to ask and when.

For example, before leave, you could:

• Ask how your employee is feeling professionally about their impending leave. (Note: good to open that question by offering positive feedback on the last year’s performance and impact so that they know you come in peace and championing them. And if you don’t feel like that, consider asking HR to lead the conversation because they’ll see right through you.) 

• Explore what areas they’d like to get a chance to develop in when they return (note you are not asking about their return date and working pattern intentions yet – so offputting!)

• Ask what they want to be kept in the loop on (events, projects, recruitment, team news, business news, promoted roles etc).

• Let them know about KIT days, remind them their optional and give exmaples of how they could be used to support return or re-board planning.

• Let them know they are still part of the team and what support is available across the company whether that’s though a parent employee network, parental leave/return coaching/support, group events etc

• Share working parent norms within the company with them (if they’re positive) to evidence intention

• You can let them know when return conversations will open and reassure them that it will be a collaboration to help arrive at what works for you both. And that they can ask questions anytime without fear of assumptions being made (only if thats true!)

• Let them know they can change their mind about what good contact looks like and that you’ll take their lead.

Next Steps

1. Recognise your autopilot

2. Review how your company frames leave and the message that might be sending out to talent.

3. Think about your objectives – what are the biggest return challenges for talent in your business and what are they costing you in time, engagement, attrition, or performance?

4. Imagine YOU are going on a secondment. What experience would you like to have of your company whilst you’re out of sight?

5. Make a list of questions to ask your talent approaching leave so that you can create a great comms plan for leave together. If you get stuck, pop me a note. (Spam free zone!)

6. Put the actions in your diary along with a note reminding you of the why.

7. Stay adaptable and approach every conversation with curiosity and big picture in mind.

Help is at hand!

What if there’s a loss or illness during leave? What if our managers are inconsistent or lack confidence with this leadership approach? What if we don’t have a great leave policy? What if someone needs more support than we can give them?

What if What if What if?

We offer a whole bunch of brilliantly simple, high impact services that bring light to maternity and parental leave experiences. You can check them out here.