This video is aimed at you if you are an HR director or work in an HR team and have been tasked with putting something together to support maternity returners in your organisation. In this video we share the 5 main arguments for offering maternity return coaching in your organisation.
1. Talent attraction
When you are looking to attract talented senior women into your organisation, really letting them know that you support them as working parents, whether they have already had a baby or not is an important message. Keep in mind that the talent you are interviewing will also be interviewing for your competitors, so make sure that what you are offering comes out on top.
Being a family friendly organisation matters when parents make decisions about their workplace. Careers after babies research found that 86% of new mothers want to work 3 days or more, which shows a big demand for flexible working. Being able to offer this as an organisation has the potential to dramatically increase female talent attraction.
2. Talent retention
According to careers after babies research, 98% of women say they want to return to work after having a baby, but only 13% say that returning is a viable option. Being able to offer support during this stage to enable women to smoothly return to work can have a huge impact on retention. Being able to speak with a coach can help them feel heard and supported as well as exploring ways in which they can make their return to work work for them.
3. Career progression
Most of the clients we speak with come back to work after maternity leave feeling more ambitious and driven than before. Providing coaching during this stage can support women in exploring ways in which they can continue their career progression throughout the different stages of maternity leave.
4. Wellbeing
In our experience women often feel vulnerable during this stage of their career, their confidence has often taken a knock as they have taken a substantial period of time away from their role. Having someone cover your role during maternity leave can also cause uncertainty and anxiety.
Overwhelm can also come into play when juggling the demands of their role while adapting to a new identity and changed circumstances at home.Coaching has been shown to improve wellbeing no matter the topic of coaching.
5. Building a supportive ecosystem
Thinking of coaching as part of an effort to create a supportive ecosystem in your organisation can be helpful. Coaching as a standalone initiative will never have as much impact as it can when integrated within a broader aim to improve company culture, where all parents, no matter their family structure are given the support they need.
If you’d like to find out more about how we can help you, please get in touch.
The research referenced in the video:
Blog posts relating to this topic:
My colleague Sarah Turner and I have been busy creating content highlighting the importance of organisations providing support for working parents. As part of this, we created this video series exploring the entire journey of maternity leave, from before the leave starts, through to preparing to return and then the first few months back at work. If you or your organisation would like to understand more about how to support your employees as they take parental leave, please get in touch.
This blog post is a collaboration between Maternity Coaches Laura Duggal and Sarah Turner. They are working together, sharing their experiences and bringing the best of their joint advice and knowledge to you.
Comments