Supporting your team through parental leave
Line Managers have a significant impact on the experience of their team members transitioning to and from parental leave. This course will help you make this the best experience possible for both of you.
Want to feel confident about managing your team to and from parental leave?
As a line manager, you have a crucial role in the smooth running of your organisation, and a significant impact on the day-to-day experience of the people you manage, especially their experience of transitioning to and from parental leave.
Finding out one of our team is going to be a parent (sometimes again) normally brings a mix of emotions. These often range from excitement on their behalf that they are growing their family to anything from apprehension to mild panic about how your team will cope while they are away, which may be anything from a couple of weeks to a year.
You might have lots of questions going around in your head such as:
- How does parental leave work?
- What's the difference between maternity, paternity and shared parental leave?
- What are KIT/SPLIT days?
- What do I need to discuss with my team member to help them prepare for parental leave?
- What's the best way to cover my team member's work while they're on leave?
- What else do I need to think about?
This course is designed to help you feel confident and comfortable supporting members of your team in their transition to parental leave, however they are becoming a parent. It aims to cover everything you need to do / know to help them have the best transition to parental leave and back to work again.
So your team members won't just survive after they return to work, they will thrive.
You have life time access to this course, and because we know how hard it is to find time to do courses on top of your day to day work, the bite size lessons are designed to make it easy to complete around even the busiest work life.
What will you learn on this course?
This course is divided into three modules to help you build a parent-friendly culture in your team, find out the key things you need to do to support your team and learn about the transition to parenthood. It covers topics such as:
-
Top tips to create an inclusive parent-friendly culture
-
How to use coaching conversations to support your team
-
How to avoid making assumptions and reduce unconscious bias
-
How to help your team maintain healthy work-life boundaries
-
The practicalities of supporting someone through parental leave
-
The importance of handover documents and return to work plans
-
How to create a parental leave 'communication plan'
-
Our top tips for managing flexible working requests
-
Understanding the transition to parenthood and how it can impact work
-
How mental load can affect parents' return to work
About The Maternity Coach
The Maternity Coach was founded by Frances Cushway, a licenced registered Career Coach who specialises in supporting parents to return to work following parental leave and continue to thrive in their careers.
Frances has a Postgraduate certificate in Career and Talent Management and a degree in Psychology. She is a Registered Career Development Professional with the CDI where she was a finalist for Career Coach of the Year 2018, 2021 and is again in 2022 for her work with mothers on maternity leave.
She offers a unique coaching experience that brings together the psychology of becoming a parent with the practicality of planning the return to work that is right for you and your family.
The Maternity Coach's mission is to support parents through parental leave and their return to work; to help them rediscover who they are and what they want from their career after parental leave and give them the courage and tools to return to work with confidence so they can continue to make their unique contribution to the world.
What do people say about this course?
The course was very helpful and informative.
"It’s all new to me and the content was easy to understand and relate to. It provided me with tools to use during the process. I had no idea of the long term physical and mental implications on a person after becoming a parent. This has made me aware and prepared. The course was very helpful and informative. It had good resources and engaging modules.”
This course has prompted me to think about things I can do differently
“It highlighted a few things to me, such as breastfeeding support, flexi working, career progression, work-life balance etc. It has prompted me to think about things like an update file, training upon return, thinking more flexibly, and what to include in the return to work plan. Having become a parent recently myself, I could relate to some of the feelings, especially the second shift and invisible tasks! So it should give me more empathy. Thank you!”
This course is good for people new to managing parental leave
“Good for people very new to managing parental leave.”
Practical tips and suggestions for 1:1 conversations
“Practical tips and suggestions for 1:1 conversations. Good Ideas for KIT/SPLlT days and handover plans. Explanation of how the brain changes and why.”
FAQ
-
Who is this course aimed at?
This course is aimed at all line managers to help support you managing your team through and back from parental leave, whether you've managed people through parental leave before, or you're new to line management.
-
Will I have time to do this, work is really busy!
This course is designed so you can dip in and out of it, so even if you only have 10 minutes here and there to grab a cup of tea and complete a lesson you will benefit, and before long you will have completed it.
-
I'm an experienced line manager, will this course be useful for me?
If you have managed team members to parental leave and back to work before, you will no doubt find some of this course familiar, while other lessons will be completely new. If there are things you would like to do differently next time, this course can help you reflect on that.
-
How long do I have access to this course?
You will have lifetime access to it and to any updates we make. So you can come back and revisit the content whenever you need it.
-
Can I get help when on the course?
There is information in the course on how to get help if you need it.
Frances' career coaching support has appeared on
