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By Jennifer Liston-Smith
In a remarkable book about the impact of love on babies’ development, Sue Gerhardt comments on the shock of the transition for professional working women:
‘My busy working life was replaced by long days that seemed to pass in slow motion, trapped in the world of the baby… For many women this is intolerable. For others, it is a pleasantly dreamy world … freed from the burdens of being a striving, achieving self. But probably for most women who have a sense of identity based on their working lives, it is a very difficult adjustment.’ (Gerhardt, 2004, p208)
It can be hard to imagine that world before we get to it and harder still to convey it to our colleagues once we’re there – even if we wanted to! Some of the easier ways of hinting at the full-on, immersive nature of early parenting are the quips about how good it will be, on returning to work, to drink a whole cup of tea and have it still be warm at the bottom.
Before we enter this new world, we need to put some things in place that are lifelines for our career, and allow us to go down into parenting and re-emerge with both a new identity and the important bits of our old one.
1. Discuss a detailed, practical plan with your manager, for your version of “reasonable contact” during maternity leave. The Work and Families Act 2006 anticipates contact but leaves it open to discussion. Options include getting only crucial information by post, being phoned up at certain points, keeping open – or not keeping open – your email access (there will be a policy of course but sometimes flexibility), having a designated ‘buddy’ on the team who keeps you in on news. Your employer is obliged to give you certain information, including notifying things like redundancy consultations or restructures. In 2003, an employee brought a successful claim for both constructive dismissal and sex discrimination when her financial services employer made an oversight and failed to communicate a job opportunity from a restructure during maternity leave.
So, define what reasonable contact will suit you. You may propose one pattern of contact and change your mind. That’s OK, and much better than not addressing it.
2. Design your own proactive KIT day. I’ve worked with some of the most enlightened employers who provide structured Keeping in Touch days, coupling elements of coaching with manager & team catch-ups and even hosting panel discussions with role models in senior leadership who share their secrets of success. If these events exist in your organisation do seize the chance. If they don’t, create your own: plan a KIT day with your manager’s consent and factor into it some meetings with your important stakeholders and sponsors. Make a plan to have lunch with a working mother you admire if at all possible. In any case, it’s a very useful dry run for childcare, whether trying out your long-term solution, or simply getting used to leaving your baby with others and getting your working head back on.
3. Prepare for your first 100 days: The return to work looks a lot like the new leader’s first 90 days described by Michael Watkins: The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels. In a HBS interview, Watkins suggests: “Everyone is straining to take the leader’s measure and people are forming opinions based on very little information. It’s a bit like starting high school; those early impressions, right or wrong, can really stick … Building credibility and securing some early wins lays a firm foundation for longer-term success.”
So, as we prepare to re-emerge from maternity-leave-world, probably tired and perhaps a bit frazzled, we can still take a moment to ask ourselves what would be the important early wins? They need to be things that build credibility and are consistent with business needs. And whatever spare energy we have available, we would do well to channel some of it into ensuring those who matter are made aware of our successes, in case they don’t see past their own expectations that we are just easing our way back gently.
>> Jennifer Liston-Smith (pictured) is Head of Coaching Development at My Family Care, where she leads and develops group coaching and management workshops and offers one-to-one maternity and leadership coaching and masterclasses to develop internal capability in financial and professional services firms. Clients include P&G, Shell, Barclays, GSK, and the Met Police.
Tags: Advice for working mums, Jennifer Liston-Smith, maternity, Shared Parenting
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