When to revisit parental leave plans, and why it's important to do it at this stage

Key takeaways

• Things can change dramatically when a child arrives. It’s important to revisit any plans with your employee before they return to work.

• Review the checklist at the end of this article to ensure you have met your obligations to the returning employee.

At this point in the journey, if your employee took long leave, they might be about to return to work.

If you followed our suggested journey together (via the toolkit or the Parental Leave Journey Planner) you might have already talked about handover, keeping in touch, and even flexibility upon return.

However, things can change dramatically with babies and children.

It's worth revisiting plans with your employee before they return to work to cover any missed steps and ensure you've met your commitments.

Flexibility

Having reviewed your legal obligations in this article, you'll know what to do if your employee makes a formal request for flexibility. They may already have a clear idea of what they want, or you can start by discussing the various options and how they might work. Would starting earlier so they can leave in time for daycare pickup work well? Perhaps they’d like to work from home a couple of days a week. What boundaries can you implement, so parents don't feel they need to constantly check email after their finish time, and so that you don’t feel like you need to be a gatekeeper? Now is the time to revisit this and make sure you both feel comfortable with the arrangements.

Handover plans

At this stage, you will be looking at the handover from the perspective of handing tasks back to the staff member who went on leave. Review the original plan and tasks with the person who has been covering as well as the person returning, if possible, to make any accommodations or changes which are no longer valid or make sense. You’ll also want to make sure the returning parent is brought up to speed on any major projects or changes that have occurred in the business during their absence.

Remember, you can't make any changes to your employee's role that put them at a disadvantage. If you need clarification, review the rules around discrimination before having this discussion.

Keeping in Touch Plans

Did you manage to stick to the Keeping in Touch Plan (KIT)? Is there anything you missed and should cover now, such as organisational updates?

If outstanding KIT days exist, you might want to encourage your employee to take these in the weeks before their return to phase their reentry to the workplace.

Example

Dan was on long parental leave and wanted to make sure his new baby was settled into childcare before he started back at work.

He had already used two of his KIT days to attend some training earlier in his Parental Leave. He then agreed with his manager that he would use his remaining eight KIT days to gradually ramp up to full-time work.

For the first week he worked two days. In weeks two and three he worked three days, and by week four he resumed full-time work. This allowed him to settle his baby more gradually into childcare.

Are you on track?

We get it, things are busy and there's plenty to think about now. Take a quick scan of the below checklist to understand if you've met your obligations with regard to your returning parent.

• Discuss any changes to work arrangements they may require.

• Respond to any written requests to extend parental leave.

• Respond to any written flexible work requests.

• Organise a handover for the returning employee.

• Consider an induction to introduce new team members or cover any organisational changes that have occurred while on leave.

• Remind the employee of the resources available in The Parent Well to help them adjust to balancing parenthood and work life.

By taking the time to revisit plans (even if it's without your employee), you'll be better prepared for what's ahead in your their journey as a working parent – and ultimately, be better equipped to support them.

Next up: we look at the conversations you need to have within the first few months of their return.