Planning Maternity or Paternity Leave: A Professional’s Guide
Taking any amount of time off work can be nerve-wracking, even if it’s for a happy event like having or adopting a baby. What’s the best way to get ready for your parental leave? How should you set boundaries? Should you check-in with your team while you’re out? And what do you do if you realize that you want to change your work schedule while you’re on leave?
What the Experts Say
Very few organizations have “a standard operating procedure” for employees taking parental time off, says Joan C. Williams, founding director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law. All too often they “Band-Aid together a solution every time someone needs to go on leave” letting the burden fall on the parent-to-be. The lack of parental leave plans in most US organizations “reflects the disconnect between people’s personal lives and their work lives,” says Lotte Bailyn, professor emerita at the MIT Sloan School of Management. “It should be easier than it is,” she says. “The fact is that people have babies; they go on National Guard leave; they get sick; and their parents get sick” — in other words, the need for leave is an inevitable fact of employment. The key is to assume a positive outlook. “It’s best if you assume it’s going to go well.” Here are some pointers.
Get a head start
You want to start thinking about how you will manage your leave — how much time you will take, whether you’ll be in contact, how you will transition back — well in advance. So before you go on leave — ideally before you’re even expecting — investigate your organization’s policies surrounding how much leave you’re entitled to. This information, depending on the size of your organization, is usually available online or in an employee handbook. If you’re unsure, contact your HR department. But be mindful about timing. “When you talk to HR depends on your organization’s culture,” says Bailyn. She says that some people worry that they will be “written off” once they announce their family plans. “Don’t wait until the last minute,” though. There is a considerable amount of paperwork and contingency planning that needs to happen and “it takes time for other people to figure out” how to manage your absence, Bailyn says.
Devise a transition strategy
About a month before your leave, ask your supervisor for help in creating a “transition-out plan,” says Williams. This memo “defines everything you do” for the organization, describes where each of your projects stands and identifies the specific colleagues or temporary workers who will “fill in for you during your leave,” she says. Without a plan like this, warns Williams, “your work will be abruptly dumped on others.” Bailyn recommends involving your colleagues. “You need to work collectively and creatively to figure out how the work will get done [in your absence],” she says. This should motivate others. “Team members will realize that if and when they need something, the group will support them, too.”
Plan your return
In addition to the transition-out plan, you should create a “transition-back memo” to help set expectations and ensure an “appropriate flow” of work for your return,” Williams says. “It’s very common to come back from leave with either no work or an overwhelming amount of work — both of these are undesirable and a recipe for high attrition.” Also think about how you’d like to structure your return to the office. “Be realistic about whether you want to do a gradual return to work” — where you start out as part-time and work up to full-time, whether you’d like to negotiate to work from home one day or week, “or if you’d like to be permanent part-time,” she says. Then, depending on your relationship with your boss, explore those possibilities before you go on leave. “If it’s going to freak out your manager if you bring this up beforehand, don’t,” says Williams. “But if your manager is more chill, why not have the information?”
Establish boundaries
While it’s “illegal for a company to ask you to work on your leave,” says Williams, “it’s practical and considerate to let your colleagues know that you’re reachable.” She suggests saying something like: If you need a crucial piece of information from me, here’s how to get in touch, and I’ll do my best to get back to you as soon as I can. Just knowing that you’re there “if something important comes up will make everyone more comfortable,” says Bailyn. And if your leave is longer than three months, you might also consider having regular, planned meetings with your team “either in-person or by videoconference” at the three-, four-, and five-month mark, she says. “These meetings are a way to check in with your group and find how everything’s going,” which will help you when you return.
Identify childcare — ASAP
Bailyn suggests researching childcare options before your baby is born. Call agencies for recommendations or search online via parent list serves. Tour facilities near your home and office. Check references on the places you like best by calling other parents. “High-quality infant daycare is difficult to find,” she says. If you’re hiring a nanny, “secure her at least one month before you return to work,” recommends Williams. “It’s common for childcare to fall through at the last minute, and it puts your job in jeopardy,” she says. Besides, this month-long overlap is a good investment for your career and your peace of mind. It allows you to “see your childcare in action,” which will help you feel better about leaving your baby; and it also helps ensure that your transition back to work is seamless, Williams says.
Let go…
Don’t be tempted to keep tabs on work projects and office politics while you’re away. “You can’t say, ‘While I am out, I want to be involved in A, B, and C.’ You need to let go,” says Williams. Failing to do so will likely lead to frustration. “You’ll be torn between your very intense new responsibilities and very intense old responsibilities,” she says. Involving yourself with work projects while you’re on leave is also unfair to the colleagues filling in for you, says Bailyn. “Think about [your leave] as an opportunity to help other people develop,” she says. After all, “you should have defined and planned how projects will be dealt with [in your absence],” she says. “Have confidence that your people will handle things the way you would want them to be handled.”
…And then gear up
About two weeks before your leave is over, Williams recommends calling your boss to set up a one-hour meeting to review your transition-back plan. “You’re not legally obligated to do this — it’s a judgment call — but if it were me, I’d do it,” she says. The alternative to this preemptive meeting is waiting to discuss your return on your first day back which increases the likelihood you will “have either no work or too much work,” she says. It’s smart to check in with your team too before your official return, says Bailyn.
Be honest with yourself
This pre-return check-in is also the time when you’ll likely make final arrangements about your transition. Remember, though, it’s a fluid situation. “You don’t know [in advance] how you’ll feel physically and emotionally [about going back to work] so you can’t make hard and fast decisions [ahead of time],” says Bailyn. If you are having second thoughts about going back fulltime, think creatively about how you could make the situation work. Bailyn recommends bringing your team in on these discussions. “The problem with flexible arrangements is that they are often individually negotiated and kept in secret,” she says. A better option is to work out a proposed plan with your team that delineates “how the work would get done” if you went part-time and then “bring it to your manager,” she says. “It could be in the spirit of, ‘Let’s try this for two months and see if it works.’”
Principles to Remember
Do
Don’t
Case Study #1: Give team members time to process what will be expected of them
Johnathan Modisett, a senior manager at Ernst & Young in Atlanta, began planning his parental leave soon after he and his wife, Kristi, found out they were expecting a second child. Kristi, also a senior manager at EY, planned to take four months off after the baby was born and Johnathan planned to take two weeks of paternity leave, and then another four weeks parental leave once Kristi went back to work.
For the initial two-week leave, Johnathan blocked off his work calendar around the time of Kristi’s due date and alerted his team not to plan on his attendance at meetings. “I told them that if anything important came up, they could get in touch,” he says. “We work so collectively and collaboratively that even though the baby arrived ten days early, it was an easy transition.”
The month-long leave required more forethought. “People need lead time — you can’t just come in on Wednesday and say, ‘I am going to be out for a month.’” Johnathan closed out his highest priority projects and he worked with each of the ten members of his team to create detailed lists and plans for what they should be doing during his month away.
During his leave, Johnathan enjoyed time with his baby; his older child was mostly at daycare or being looked after by grandparents. He says he checked email every couple of days. “Some of the younger members of my team occasionally reached out saying, ‘I hate to bother you but…’ If I could give them a quick answer, I did. But if their question required a more in-depth response I [forwarded it on] to another manager.”
His baby is now seven months old. And Johnathan’s return to work has been, for the most part, uneventful. “Part of the reason I was able to re-energize and reinsert myself back into work was that I was checking emails during leave; I knew that I didn’t have a month’s worth of email waiting for me,” he says. “I jumped right back in.”
Case Study #2: Work collaboratively with your team on a workload plan
Erin Quinn-Kong, the editor-in-chief of Austin Monthly, found out she was pregnant only a couple of days before her company’s new publisher started on the job. She decided to hold off sharing her news until she was 16 weeks pregnant.
“I have been here five years, but I had a brand-new boss — I wanted to establish a relationship with him before I told him I was pregnant,” says Erin, who is due in early July.
By the time she told her publisher, Erin had already mapped out a plan for how she would structure her leave and also provided suggestions for how her staff could do the work while she’s away. She also talked to her team. “We discussed potentially bringing in someone new at the bottom, but the other editors here decided they wanted to handle it themselves,” she says. “We have planned as far in advance as possible, and we’re all working hard now to get ahead.”
During her leave — which will consist of eight weeks disability pay and an additional four weeks of both paid and unpaid time off — Erin says she will “go dark” but be reachable to her staff in the event that something important comes up. “I trust them. I know they’re good at their jobs, and they’re not going to call me for ‘in the weeds’ type stuff. They will figure it out. It will be a good learning experience for them.”
It has also been a good learning experience for Erin. “I’ve gotten better at delegating since I announced I was pregnant,” she says.
When her maternity leave is over, Erin plans to return to her job full-time but will work Wednesdays from home — an arrangement she has already worked out with her publisher. (She started this flex-time arrangement at the beginning of her third trimester, which has “really helped with the transition.”)
Her daughter will be in daycare, one block away from Erin’s house. “I will do drop off, and my husband will do pick up,” she says. “That’s the plan.”
Planning Maternity or Paternity Leave: A Professional’s Guide
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