What Your "New" Parent-Employee Needs for their Parental Leave Return

Abigail Guardado, Consultant

A standard Parental Leave Policy usually covers areas such as FMLA leave and eligibility for paid parental leave. What about the things to consider outside of the policy such as how to welcome the new parent back to work?

Here are a few things to consider when it comes to new parents returning to the workplace:

Treat them like a “Newbie”

FMLA usually covers 12 weeks for an employee to take time off from work for giving birth or adoption.  As you can imagine, perhaps a few policies, team members, and roles may have changed or been added within the company over the three months they were gone. For their first day back, they will need to get up to speed on all new things in order to get “back into the groove”. Give the new parent a positive, warm welcome by re-onboarding them as you do for new hires:

• Welcome Back Announcement – Just like you welcome all new hires and give them an introduction to the team, give your new parent a welcome back shout-out! This will also help the whole team know that they have returned.
• Keep their Seat Warm! - If their desk or area was moved then make sure they have their space defined. Give an extra cozy touch by giving them a welcome back gift basket or a card signed by the team!
• Orientation/Training - Perform a mini-orientation as well as some training to catch up on all the changes to get them up to speed! If their role, manager, or anything else was changed be sure to address that as well.
• Check-Ins - For new hires, it’s pretty standard to have 30-, 60-, and 90-day check-points. Do the same for this new parent. Adapting to being a full-time employee with a newborn is stressful and a quick check-in will go a long way while they try to navigate new routines.

Create a Culture of Support

There are plenty of struggles that parents wrestle with when having a newborn.  Some of those can include post-partum depression (it can also be found in men), mom/dad guilt, breastfeeding, additional medical complications for birthing moms, poor sleep, lack of energy and the list goes on! This may be the reason why more than 15 countries offer more than 40 weeks of paid parental leave. Yes, 40 weeks! 

Tips for Creating a Supportive Culture:

• Co-workers and reporting managers sharing empathy and understanding can help ease some of the personal stress of the new parent.

• Allowing nursing breaks and having a cozy lactation room. Pumping mothers pump anywhere from every one to four hours. Creating a comfortable space and pumping breaks would be helpful to nursing moms. Bonus points if you can give them a good amount of fridge space to store their “labor of love” milk!

Flexibility & Scheduling

Have you heard the term, “Slept like a baby”?  Well, newsflash - most newborn babies do not sleep soundly and through the night. As a matter of fact, a good amount of babies do not start sleeping through the night until they are about 6 months! Can you imagine at least half a year of broken sleep?! If you ever had a sleepless night, you know the next day is not always your most productive day. Give some grace to your sleep-deprived employee. A flex schedule could bring out the employee’s best performance as well as some flexibility in switching to a role that is more flexible or less stressful.  Other ideas could be a hybrid schedule, a working from home option, or even offering part-time hours. Some companies also introduce a “transition” schedule where new parents can report a flexible number of hours depending on the employee’s availability for the first several weeks upon their return.

Review your plan for new parents coming back to your company. Having a warm welcome back and making them feel supported can help bring the best out of your new parent-employee!

At Cornerstone, we can help you with compliance, training, and creating policies related to parental leave. Please emails us at chris@cornerstonecc.pro to get you started!