What Working Parents Are Really Navigating — Before, During and After Leave
Here's a question worth considering. When someone on your team goes on parental leave, what does your organisation actually do? Not in policy — in practice.
Is there a genuine conversation before they leave, beyond the logistics? Is there a thoughtful plan for staying in touch during leave, or does that depend on the individual manager? And when they return — is it truly supported, or does it largely get left to the parent to figure out?
For most organisations, the honest answer is: it varies. A lot.
That's the conversation Laura Duggal and I are bringing into the open in our upcoming webinar, From Pregnancy to Return: Building a Better Working Parent Experience. And it starts with understanding what parents are actually going through — at every stage of the journey.
The focus is too narrow
In most organisations, the parental leave conversation starts when someone submits their notice of leave — and ends when they walk back through the door.
The return to work gets the attention. The before and the during? They're often treated as administrative.
But beneath the surface of the handover conversations and the logistics planning, there's a lot more going on. And if we don't understand what that is, we can't respond to it well.
Before leave: more than a handover
On paper, the period before someone goes on leave looks fairly straightforward. Handovers, documentation, wrapping things up.
But for the individual, it can feel very different.
In the coaching work we do with expectant and new parents, we regularly hear things like: Will my role still be here when I come back? Will I be seen the same way professionally? Am I handing over too much — or not enough?
And underneath those practical concerns, something bigger is often happening: an identity shift.
For many people, work has been a core part of how they see themselves. Years of building a career, a professional network, a sense of who they are. And as they prepare to step away, that identity begins to shift — sometimes gradually, sometimes quite suddenly.
You might see someone becoming more reflective about their career direction. Questioning what they want long-term. Or feeling a quiet sense of loss about stepping away — even if they're excited about what's coming.
These things don't tend to come up in the handover meeting. Which is exactly why we need to create space for a different kind of conversation before leave begins.
During leave: silence isn't always golden
Experiences during leave vary enormously. Some parents want to switch off completely — and that's exactly right for them. Others want to check in occasionally, stay connected to team updates, or be included in group updates.
Here's the important part: if you haven't had the conversation, you won't know which applies to the person on your team.
Silence from the organisation gets interpreted very differently depending on the individual. For some, it feels respectful. For others, it can feel like being forgotten. And the anxiety that comes from feeling forgotten doesn't tend to stay quiet — it tends to grow.
Keeping in Touch days can play a genuinely valuable role here. But only when they're used intentionally — shaped around what the individual actually wants, rather than what's convenient for the organisation.
Leave is also not a neutral pause. It's a period of significant personal transformation. Becoming a parent — or expanding a family — changes how someone experiences time, energy, priorities, and their relationship to work. Understanding that, as an employer, is part of building a culture that truly supports parents.
The return: it's more complex than 'getting back up to speed'
When we talk to organisations about the return to work, the framing is often about productivity. Getting people back up to speed. Filling the gap.
But for the individual, the return is one of the most emotionally complex moments of the whole journey.
We regularly see a real mix of things happening at this stage: excitement about being back — having adult time, a sense of purpose — alongside guilt about leaving a baby, uncertainty if the team or organisation has changed, a dip in confidence even in very experienced employees, and practical pressures like childcare logistics and sleep deprivation that don't disappear at the office door.
One of the most consistent themes we hear is around confidence. People asking themselves: can I still do this at the same level? Have I fallen behind? How will I be perceived now?
Confidence does tend to return — but it often needs the right conditions to do so. It doesn't just bounce back automatically.
And there's an identity dimension here too. Parents return holding multiple roles — professional and personal — in a way they didn't before. Integrating those takes time and support.
Here's the reframe we often offer: people don't come back as the same person who left. And that's not a problem. In many cases, they return with remarkable new capabilities — stronger prioritisation, deeper empathy, greater resilience. But the transition still needs to be actively supported.
The thread that runs through everything
When you look across all three stages — before, during, and after leave — a few common themes emerge consistently.
Uncertainty. Identity shift. A sense of navigating significant change while trying to hold everything together. And a gap between what organisations intend to provide and what parents actually experience.
As Laura and I often say: it's not about huge changes. It's about small shifts in awareness, conversations, and consistency. Those are the things that really shape someone's experience.
Join us on 23 June
If you're in HR or you manage a team, we'd love for you to join us for our free webinar.
We'll be taking you through the full journey — before, during, and after leave — exploring what parents are really navigating at each stage, and leaving you with practical reflections you can bring back to your organisation.
📅 Date: Tuesday 23 June 2026
⏰ Time: 10:00am – 10:30am (BST)
💻 Format: Online | Free to attend
🔗 Register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/from-pregnancy-to-return-building-a-better-working-parent-experience-tickets-1989906759685
