This is a guest post by Lori Mihalich-Levin, CEO & Founder of Mindful Return, LLC.
Whether an employee has been with your organization for years and years, or only briefly, the experience of going out on and coming back from parental leave is momentous for everyone involved. As an employer, you likely have Leave policies in place, forms for the new parent to complete, and perhaps even some specific benefits and support to help them.
But do you know what’s going on inside the minds of your colleagues who have recently expanded their families? For those who have already done focus groups or other studies of your new parent population: kudos! For those of you who may not be so sure what they are concerned about, here are some ideas to get you started.
Why focus on your new parents’ worries? You absolutely have a better chance at retaining valued new parent employees, if you can identify the specific challenges they face and address them head-on.
4 Common Concerns of New Parents & Helpful Actions You Can Take
Here are four of the common concerns I hear from new parents on a regular basis, and some steps you can take to enhance their leave-and-return experience:
1. Worries About How Their Commitment Will Be Perceived
Sadly, there are still many well-documented working parent biases that run rampant in our modern workplaces. The “motherhood penalty” and “fatherhood forfeit” can seep into an organization, when managers and other colleagues assume – benevolently or not – that an employee can’t do as much as they did before baby, need to “take it easy”, or aren’t as committed to their roles.
Solutions: Employers can address these biases head-on by acknowledging their presence, educating on implicit biases, and expressing to new parents that the organization truly believe in them. Having someone in leadership say to the new parent “You matter here, we value your contribution, and we’re going to help you navigate this transition period” goes an incredibly long way in quelling new parent’s justified fears on this subject.
2. Finding Childcare
Even pre-pandemic, there was a national lack of affordable childcare. Now that many centers have closed and labor markets are tight, this shortage has reached crisis levels. New parents worry that they won’t be able to have childcare lined up in time for their return from leave. (I remember being on 8 different wait lists and having to lobby to get a spot – and that was 12 years ago!)
Solutions: Being sensitive to the very real struggle of finding caregivers and offering flexibility in schedule and hours during those first few months after leave can certainly help. Offering family care planning or childcare solutions goes even further in addressing this extremely critical need. After all, if someone cannot care for your employee’s child, your employee cannot work.
3. Confusing and Hard-to-Find Policies and Benefits
I hear stories all the time about employees who were upset they didn’t know the full extent of the leave they were permitted to take, or the benefits available to them that could have supported them through this major life transition. Indeed, I’ve felt this acutely myself. When I worked at a large law firm, it took me 18 months after arriving at the firm to discover that there was a benefit I could have been using for a year and a half when my kiddos got sick (which was fairly often while they were in daycare!).
Solutions: Take a good look at the information flow around all of your policies and benefits related to parenthood. Are they available in a centralized and easy-to-find place on your organization’s intranet? Can employees who may be thinking about expanding their families (but who aren’t yet ready to ask questions about it) locate these materials? Do new hires get an education about what is available to them? In the chaos of new parenthood, repetition is also incredibly helpful. Don’t worry about sending them information too many times!
4. Feelings of Isolation
Whether or not a new parent is an “only” in the organization or on their team, the early days of working parenthood tend to feel extremely isolating for many employees. I remember vividly experiencing both a new parent identity crisis and sleep deprivation simultaneously, and thinking I was the only one having thoughts about whether I could possibly manage this new combination of work and family responsibilities. Connecting with others going through the same challenges brought me huge amounts of relief.
Solutions: Find ways to connect your new parent employees to one another. Whether by creating or nurturing existing new parent mentoring programs and parent and caregiver affinity groups and employee resource groups (ERGs), or by offering the opportunity to participate in new working parent transition support groups with new parents from other organizations, there are any number of ways you can help your colleagues not feel so alone as they make this life transition.
The list of new parent concerns is much longer than these four, of course. But if you pick just one and take action on it, I promise you will be moving the needle in the right direction, toward a smoother and more successful leave and return experience for your employees.
Author Spotlight
Lori Mihalich-Levin, JD
Lori believes in empowering working parents. She is the founder and CEO of Mindful Return, author of Back to Work After Baby: How to Plan and Navigate a Mindful Return from Maternity Leave, and co-host of the Parents at Work Podcast. She is also the Co-Chair of the inaugural DC Chapter of Postpartum Support International (PSI). Lori is a mama to two wonderful red-headed boys (ages 10 and 12) and is a healthcare lawyer in private practice. Her thought leadership has been featured in publications including Forbes, The Washington Post, New York Times Parenting, and Thrive Global.
