Navigating the Return from Maternity Leave
Whether you’re returning to work from maternity leave earlier that you’d have liked to, desperate to get back some adult conversation and some semblance of “me” time, or a heady concoction of the two, it’s likely to be an emotion-filled roller coaster as you leave your child in the care of others and return to work for a significant proportion of the week.
Add to that, sleep deprivation that can leave you barely able to finish a sentence, additional logistical and emotional challenges if you want to continue breast-feeding, plus significant hormonal changes, returning to work can feel like a daunting task.
And this is before you factor in concerns relating to your actual job: concerns about how your role has been handled since you’ve been away (was your maternity cover doing a good enough job to keep everything ticking over and your team happy? What if they were too good and everyone would secretly rather they stayed instead of me? My duties were absorbed by the team; what if my role doesn’t really exist any more? Will I even remember how to do my job?).
It’s no wonder that many returning mums feel on the back foot. You’re not only taking all of the above in to account, you’re also returning to work as a changed person - one with significant additional responsibilities to juggle 24 hours a day.
So what can help to ease this transition?
Give yourself some grace and acknowledge that it’s a challenging time. You’re not going to be able to navigate this all at once, so accept that this transition will take time to accommodate and feel “normal”. There are new routines to get used to, for you and for your family, and perhaps new processes and colleagues to adapt to at work. None of this will happen instantly and a lot of conflicting emotions can accompany this process. It’s all normal, including the mum guilt, and it should get easier with time, planning and the right support.
Work on your confidence. Loss of confidence is often cited as a major challenge on returning to work. Remember how your skillset has evolved since you were last in your role; you’ve developed additional time management skills, organisation, multi-tasking, perseverance, endurance, empathy, crisis management…the list goes on.
Plan ahead. Use Keep in Touch days if and when you can (you can work up to ten, if you and the business agree). It can be useful to use these to check in with your team, attend company updates, and catch up with your manager on what’s happening in the business, to ensure you have some level of comfort when returning. It’s also a great idea to use the time to discuss your planned return with your manager, and raise any questions or concerns you might have about logistics and practicalities of your return. If you have the option to return to work more gradually for the first couple of weeks, perhaps by utilising holiday, consider whether this would work for you and the business.
Ask for support from your managers. Will you require training on any new systems that have been introduced, or perhaps a refresher on any systems you won’t have used in a while? Planning time into your first couple of days to get back up to speed with any systems (including resetting passwords) can be helpful. Will your manager be announcing your return to the business? Consider discussing their expectations, as well as how you can raise your visibility internally to ensure that you’re in the room and in the right meetings so that you feel part of the business again as early as possible.
While returning to work can be a challenging time, it’s important to remember not to take your emotional temperature within the first few weeks of the process. As with all change, time helps, and a coach can support you as you find your feet at work again. The most successful returns to work I have seen have been where both the returning employee and the manager receive coaching, in order to help them both navigate the new normal at work.