Empowering returners after parental leave

When someone returns to work after a period of parental leave, they’re often experiencing significant personal and professional change. They’re likely adjusting to new childcare arrangements and home-life routines whilst also re-engaging in their professional role, re-connecting with colleagues and clients, and navigating any organisational changes that have occurred in their absence.

Our research consistently highlights that a supportive and understanding manager is one of the key factors making the return to work easier for parents, with continued support helping to maintain motivation and self-belief.

Equally, our research suggests that a lack of awareness and understanding of the practical and emotional challenges experienced at this time can be a significant blocker to a successful return to work. This often presents through more subtle behaviours that can reinforce a sense of insecurity, undermine psychological safety, and reduce personal empowerment.

Based on this research and experience, we’ve summarised three tips to help managers feel more confident empowering returners after parental leave:

Increase your empathic listening

One of the greatest challenges we hear from returning parents is a fear that they’ll no longer be any good at their job. As a result, returning parents may over-compensate by expressing their excitement to be back in the office. While this is encouraging to hear, what might be less overtly obvious are the different emotions likely underpinning their return to work. As a manager, it’s important to create a safe space for people to openly ask questions and share concerns.

Empathic listening involves accepting and validating their experience, whilst showing a genuine curiosity to fully understand. By listening empathically, you’re demonstrating that you genuinely care about them, their thoughts, and their feelings. You can set the tone for this conversation by bringing some personal vulnerability. This might be through sharing your own experiences of the highs and lows of change, or simply through acknowledging that you may not have all the answers, but you’re ready to listen and learn. This helps to build trust, which is the cornerstone of psychological safety.

You could even use a little humour to help open the discussion and put everyone at ease with a question like: “what’s keeping you awake at night… aside from the obvious?”

Co-create a return-to-work plan

Change has the potential to prompt feelings of confusion and uncertainty. As a manager, you can provide clarity of direction through sharing relevant team / client updates, defining specific, realistic goals, whilst offering flexibility to settle back in at a sensible speed (making time for all the necessary IT updates!). The challenge is getting the balance right. Too little structure and the return to work can feel lacking in focus, while too much can feel overwhelming.

The secret to getting the balance right is to co-create a return-to-work plan. This helps both sides stay tuned into the facts and aligned on priorities, and avoids any unhelpful assumptions being made. Before your first planning conversation, it’s worth taking a step back to consider where you could be making assumptions about the returners wants and needs, and what questions you need to ask to establish the full facts.

The planning and on-going support process should be a series positive, solutions-focused conversations that aim to align individual wants and needs to the wants and needs of the team / business. This provides continued psychological safety whilst also promoting accountability for the goals that are set. Making all relevant policies and resources easy to access, then proactively reminding returners where these can be found, will also help to build trust from the get-go.

Remember, as with any change, the return to work after parental leave is a transition period and not a single point in time. Protected time in the diary for frequent check-ins and timely feedback – both positive and development – are essential to the success of the change journey. This will ensure you stay united on expectations and desired outcomes.

Navigate towards personal values

Experiencing several changes at once can destabilise our sense of self and it’s possible to lose sight of personal strengths. As a manager, you can motivate and inspire returners by re-orientating them towards what they value and re-iterating the value they bring to the team. This helps to re-establish a clear sense of purpose.  

Consider weaving these questions into your next conversation to help the returner navigate towards their personal values and strengths: what energises you most at work, what matters most to you outside of work, what would you like to be doing more of / less of (inside & outside of work), and what working environments / patterns play to your strengths? Recognise and celebrate successes and small wins during their early days, weeks, and months back in the business as a way of re-affirming the importance of their contribution.

Be mindful of the extent to which you are living by your values too. Our research shows that leadership role models can have a positive influence on performance and wellbeing across the business, and this can be both reassuring and empowering when returning to work after parental leave.  

Jayne Ruff – Chartered Occupational Psychologist & Founder of Parenting Point.

Parenting Point exists to give everyone the self-belief that they can flourish as a parent and a professional by positively aligning both worlds. We help parents find their meaningful and fulfilling work-life balance through practical, psychology-based workshops and coaching. We work with organisations to create positive and inclusive performance cultures that support and encourage the growth of working parents.